Food obsession

Can you freak out about food?

By
March 4, 2009

According to a recent New York Times article, parents concerned about what their children eat are raising kids to be fearful of food. Refined flour. Sugar. Trans fats. Pesticides. Even salt. Apparently we’re raising our tots to be overly worried about their own health:

Dr. Steven Bratman of Denver has come up with a term to describe people obsessed with health food: orthorexia. Orthorexic patients, he says, are fixated on “righteous eating” (the word stems from the Greek word ortho, meaning straight and correct).

Or maybe it’s just a fancy term for “obsessed with food.”

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1. by Tiersa Rodell on Mar 4, 2009 at 6:30 PM PST

My concern is that people go to the extreme. My stepdaughter was taught that all sugar and carbs are bad. She is now 18 (and a new member of my family) and her sense of what to eat is very unhealthy, if it’s a carb it’s considered “bad food” and since she doesn’t like vegetables she lives on a diet of meat and cheese. Needless to say she is having trouble maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy body image. I think it’s very sad that so many people see food as either/or and all or nothing. I’m trying to help instill realistic healthier habits but it’s tough at this stage. Thanks for posting this.

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