Orthorexia Home Page

The Orthorexia Home Page

4/8/08. New Content: Full text of The Adventures of Holistic Harry, also known as Confessions of a Quack. This comic novel approaches the entire universe of alternative medicine with the same spirit that Health Food Junkies brought to the world of healthfoodism.

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In December of 2003, I received the tragic news that Kate Finn died of orthorexia.

Kate was a wonderful woman who contacted me just prior to the publication of Health Food Junkies and influenced my writing of it. Later, she gave media interviews about orthorexia, and posted an article on www.beyondveg.com discussing her recovery from it. Sadly, this recovery was not as complete as she hoped. She recently died of heart failure brought on by orthorexia-induced starvation.Holistic Harry

In her article, Kate tells of a time when doctors diagnosed her with anorexia. She resisted the diagnosis and their recommended treatment. It just didn't seem to fit. She wasn't afraid of being fat. She didn't want to be thin. She just wanted to eat healthy food.

Nonetheless, she brought her weight down so low she ultimately died from it.

Most often, orthorexia is merely a source of psychological distress, not a physical danger. However, emaciation is common among followers of certain health food diets, such raw foodism, and this can at times reach the extremes seen in anorexia nervosa. Such "anorexic orthorexia" is just as dangerous as anorexia. However, the underlying motivation is quite different. While an anorexic wants to lose weight, an orthorexic wants to feel pure, healthy and natural. Eating disorder specialists may fail to understand this distinction, leading to a disconnect between orthorexic and physician.

Whatever the motivation, there's nothing healthy and natural about starving yourself to death! If you're obsessed with healthy diet, and yet people tell you that you are seriously underweight, please take Kate's story to heart. You may not be anorexic in the ordinary sense, and yet what you have may kill you.

It may help you to read the stories and articles about orthorexia on the BeyondVeg website. In addition, you can read the "What is Orthorexia?" article on this site, as well as my original orthorexia article published in Yoga Journal. Even better, get a copy of Health Food Junkies.

NOTE: If you are severely underweight, you urgently need the help of an eating disorder specialist. Because such specialists may not have heard of orthorexia, and for that reason may seem to miss the mark when they first speak with you. I suggest that you show them the For Professionals section of this site. Given a little insight into orthorexia, a good eating disorder specialist should be able to adapt, and offer you the help you need.

— Steven Bratman, M.D.