Orthorexic

This is, apparently, the truth. An international psychiatrist’s organization recently recognized and adopted a new mental disorder they have named orthorexia nervosa: essentially a Latin phrase meaning a ‘fixation with eating healthy foods.’ Two thoughts came to my mind when I learned this: surely this is a joke and, secondly, this is not an illness from which I suffer. As I have lived – so far – through 58 years, I have come face-to-face with more mental disorders than I ever imagined and most were sad, frightening and debilitating. I love and care for individuals that are psychologically challenged: bi-polar, manic, addictive, borderline and some that are simply zany. I know have my own significant shortcomings, too although they have not been diagnosed. For the most part we all make adjustments in our relationships with those who carry the heavy chains of mental disorders; after all, they are illnesses just like heart disease, diabetes or cancer.

I have a few friends and family members who are very aware of and concerned about what they eat. There’s always someone present who asks one too many questions about how something was prepared, where it came from, what’s in it and the calorie count. Although it can be annoying and time consuming it all falls – in my opinion – very much in the realm of rational thought and process. Of all the things we should consider it seems most sane to scrutinize that which we eat and drink and the impact of those decisions on our physical welfare. So, to define this preoccupation with healthy eating a mental disorder is just plain crazy.

Of course, I am not a psychiatrist nor am I a doctor of any kind. I am a college drop out with terribly bad eating habits. However, I have taken it upon myself to introduce a new mental disorder: psychiatrix maximus asininus.