Talk:Orthorexia nervosa

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This article was nominated for deletion on June 9, 2005; the consensus was to keep. For discussion, please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Orthorexia nervosa.

Since the full term for the condition is orthorexia nervosa, should it be moved to an article with that title? Anyone? --Frecklefoot 18:07 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Done. Kent Wang 22:27, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I removed the following; it didn't seem directly relevant to orthorexia as a medical condition, only indirectly relevant. Maybe it could be moved to another page:

Others say that many scientists are divorced from ethics... and that one cannot be too rich or too thin. They cite statistics that nonagenarians and centenarians are usually thinner than average, placing less stress on organs.

7000 vegan MD's have numerous articles on overweight in relation to animal products. http://www.pcrm.org

I also removed the following line, because thinnes isn't the major problem with orthorexia, there are other concerns:

As a result, the sufferer may become as hazardously thin as those suffering from anorexia.

[edit] Totally disputed

One MD decides to name a "condition" based on "excessively healthy eating = mental disease" unsupported by any studies or medical consensus, and this is the apparent basis of the article. To the extent I might be inclined to include this material it should be merged into eating disorders and even so it seems rather marginal at best. Whig 16:49, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • The NPOV tag in this instance is innappropriate as at no point in it's current incarnation does the article accuse or imply through language or tone that "excessively healthy eating = mental disease" (your quotes). It simply reports on the ongoing scientific study of the phenomena without judging anyone or anything. As time progresses and more evidence is published for or against, then such information can obviously be added. Disaggreeing with the existance of the subject of an article does not make it POV, and as, so far, there has been one objection to it, it is not "Totally disputed." --Jeffrey O. Gustafson 17:56, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)


'Unhealthy obsession with eating healthy'?

Since food is by far the primary determinant of good health, can there even be such a thing as an unhealthy obsession with health?

Allow me to introduce you to Andrew Lin. - Jersyko talk 19:04, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What the article needs

Conspicuously missing is the reason why Bratman claims this condition is a disease. The article is otherwise unintelligible and gathers the above type of comments from those who think it is simply calling people who eat healthily crazy. Could whoever wrote this to start with please add the key info? Thanks alteripse 23:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Why the concept is not accepted

Bratman did not back up his concept with any research. His concept is not neutral. Some of his statements indicate that he wanted to write a parody!

Please cite an instance of Bratman stating that his intention was to write a parody. Skinwalker 16:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

... Bratman hasn't done clinical tests or studies, but insists he isn't trying to create a medical disorder that would belittle the serious problems involved with other eating disorders. "I invented the word orthorexia as a tease. I don't really believe it's as bad as anorexia, but the word has shock value to get people to reexamine their values," Bratman says during a telephone interview from his home office in Fort Collins, Colo. "It's like workaholism. Nobody thinks it's as bad as alcoholism. But like workaholism, people mistake it as a virtue." http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.02.01/eating1-0131.html

Thus the term is not accepted neither by the research community nor by the medical community. It is worhless for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and it is dangerous to label people. The concept is not critized by experts, because they feel eating healthy would be fine in all cases. The concept is not accepted because it is not funded on sound research like for example the concept of bulimie or anorexia nervosa!

The study cited in the article found a 6.9% prevalance of orthorexia, as they defined it. Please explain why a peer reviewed paper does not constitute "sound research".
unfortunately there is one study - but wait until the research community has discussed the paper! It very much depends on how you define "orthorexia". I do not believe that they think that it might be possible that 6,9% of the population counts calories and vitamins 3 hours a day. One study is weak evidence nevertheless, it does not prove anything. Compare to anorexia or bulimie, there are hundreds of studies.

Are you aware of any expert dieticians or other physical/mental health professionals who have criticized this study, or Bratman's hypothesis? If so, please cite them, so we can include it in the article for balance. We cannot include editorial commentary in encyclopedic articles. WP:NPOV states:

"A good way to help building a neutral point of view is to find a reputable source for the piece of information you want to add to wikipedia, and then cite that source. This is an easy way to characterize a side of a debate without excluding that the debate has other sides."
I have no problem with including anti-orthorexia information, but we must find reliable sources to back it up. Skinwalker 16:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
the concept is not discussed in the scientific community. Go and ask a psychiatrist.

There are many reasons why people can get too fussy about food. This is well known in psychology and psychatry. But Bratman does not have any expertise on these fields. He simply ignores all differential diagnosis. He just describes things that he observes in himself and other people.Thus merges together very different things:

  • some observations he presents as symptoms are no sypmtoms at all, like buying too much healthy food or eating organic.
  • some symptoms might be first signs of psychose or borderline syndrome.
  • only few of his observation could indicate eating disorders - perhaps the classical anorexia.
  • wrong self-therapy of people that are seriously ill

I suggest to give much more stress to the fact that the term is not accepted by the scientific community! There are very good reasons to reject it. Scientific ressources must be named!

I agree that scientific sources should be used, ideally on an exclusive basis. Skinwalker 16:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Newspapers and online portals that copy from each other do not count for resources.

It is absolutely NOT acceptable that term is presented in a way that people believe it is a medical condition like bulimie or anorexia!

Why not? Please review WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Thanks! Skinwalker 16:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Skinwalker: the concept is not accepted by academics like other disorders. Thus it cannot be presented in that way! Please stop deleating my contributions! I always try to consider your objections.

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