Microthinking About Micronutrients: A Case of Transition From Obsessions About Healthy Eating to Near-Fatal “Orthorexia Nervosa” and Proposed Diagnostic Criteria

The prevalence of orthorexia nervosa among eating disorder patients after treatment

“…corresponding to t0 of patients) are available for this group. Second, the diagnosis of ON was based on a paper and pencil tool as only very recently operational diagnostic criteria have been proposed [3]. Despite these limitations, the results of this study suggest that ON features are highly prevalent among patients with AN and BN and that they tend to increase after the treatment of the ED.…”

“…New operational diagnostic criteria for ON have recently been suggested [3] whose reliability can only be confirmed by further studies that authors aim to put into practice.…”

“…Bratman [1] coined the term orthorexia nervosa (ON) for this behaviour. Orthorexia is usually a source more of psychological distress (including loneliness, spending too much time buying and planning out meals, avoidance of social situations that include eating, poor relationships) than of real physical danger, but in severe cases it can also lead to medical complications [2,3].…”

“…Although symptoms have been well described [4,5], only very recently new criteria have been proposed to frame this type of eating altered behaviour [3]. According to literature, orthorexic phenomenon can be seen as a continuum of states from the healthy behaviour to the pathological interest on healthy food when purity replaces pleasure [6].…”

Orthorexia vs. theories of healthy eating

“…Note that these proposed criteria were explicitly designed to build upon and supercede the so-called Moroze Criteria, proposed in a previous paper in which the primary listed author is listed as R Moroze, but in fact was primarily authored by Dunn [8].…”