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redthedragon asked, all shall receive: the case for orthorexia being a component of purity culture.
First, a disclaimer on biases and sources. Orthorexia is not, at the moment, recognized by the major psychiatric manuals (DSM or ICD) and research on it is less common and more anecdotal than research on anorexia and bulimia. What I'm writing here is based partly based on case studies and testimonies reported online, and partly on my own observations of several orthorexics, chief among them myself and my oldest sibling. Take that into account as you read this.
Orthorexia, as defined here by the National Eating Disorders Association, is "an obsession with proper or 'healthful' eating". The manifestations vary as much as they do in other mental health disorders. In my case, a terror of animal death led to me avoiding meat, gelatin, and other products (not just foods) made from slaughtered animal parts (although foods that could indirectly kill animals via habitat destruction or poisoning were fine: mental disorders are not logical or reasonable, by their nature). In my sibling's case, a terror of death by cancer (which started around the time another family member died of cancer) led to increasingly rigid rules about foods and other products to avoid anything that might cause cancer (which was difficult, since only one product has ever been announced by the FDA to be "probably not oncogenic" and none have been declared completely safe). Other manifestations include an avoidance of anything "processed", only eating organic foods, extreme veganism, and so forth.
The very first thing I want to say about orthorexia is that, just like other eating disorders, the issues with food are merely a manifestation of something deeper. To use the best-known examples, anorexia and bulimia: the starvation/purging and general issues around food are not about food per se but about the person's relationship to their body, typically understood as "I want to be thinner". Even this isn't necessarily the root cause, however: the body image issues are typically built upon a foundation of anxiety, perfectionism, and a lack of control over one's own life (and therefore a desire to take some kind of control back over one's own body). I will note here that eating disorders are common among abuse victims (who are, by definition, disempowered) and trans people (who often struggle with their body not looking the way they want it to), and multiple people I've known have explicitly said that getting tattoos and other body modifications (thereby reclaiming their bodies at least a body) was a part of recovery.
(Other eating disorders exist. I won't analyze them here because they deserve more care than I am currently capable of at the moment.)
To expand on that point a bit, the orthorexics I know do not just obsess with foods but also with other products. I cannot wear leather or silk without experiencing the same distress as I get when I eat meat (my distress being horrifying, intrusive mental images of animals slowly and painfully dying - an OCD trait). My oldest sibling cut out not just gluten (tenuously linked to cancer) but also a huge variety of plastics and metals and other products that have been correlated with the disease.
To expand even further, however, the "cutting out" does not stop at products. Reading accounts from recovering orthorexics, I see a trend: of moral stances, on food and other things, that have no room for flexibility or nuance. Something - or someone - is either perfectly aligned with your views, or it is fully evil and must be banished. Many orthorexics will either stop speaking to or aggressively try to convert loved ones who don't follow their dietary/consumption restrictions (ask me about the lectures my sibling gave me for using the "wrong" deodorant, ugh).
I can personally attest that my obsession with only eating the "correct" foods was matched by an obsession with only spending time with "correct" people - people who agreed with me on everything. This led to me cutting people out people who, for example, used the word "stupid" (which I'd decided was verboten) as an insult. Other orthorexics show similar patterns: boycotting stores for selling forbidden products, refusing to enjoy a movie or book because it "glorifies" something they disagree with, only supporting political organizations that fully align with their own views, and, most terrifyingly to me, spending time only with others who share their opinions, creating a feedback loop of spiraling into further orthorexia and isolationism.
Now, how does this relate to purity culture? While purity culture is most commonly associated with Christian ideas on sexuality (specifically, avoiding it), it's much more than that: an avoidance of "sin" in any form. Whether we like it or not, Christian notions of virtue are pervasive in the United States. In US Christianity (having mostly lived in the US, I can't really speak to Christianity in other countries), children are taught from an early age that they are inherently sinful, that they must strive eternally to atone for this, that the outside world is full of evil trying to corrupt them, and that even thinking about sinning is a sin.
These ideas are explicitly taught to many Christian children, and are unconsciously absorbed by many people even outside those contexts. As they diffuse out of overtly Christian circles, they combine with US exceptionalism to create a - not necessarily religious, plenty of secular and atheist groups fall into this as well - dangerous worldview: that dogmatic adherence to a binary set of beliefs is good (the beliefs themselves vary from person to person and group to group), that compromise is an utter betrayal of one's morals, that anyone who doesn't fully agree with you on everything is evil and maybe not even human (hence not deserving of basic human rights) and that you must not even entertain their arguments. Many people have internalized these beliefs to some extent, often without knowing where they originated.
You see these beliefs in radical feminist circles, where the big "sin" to be excised is manhood. You see a newer variant of the radical feminist thinking in many online queer circles, where the "sin" is straightness.
You see these beliefs in some leftist groups as well, where the "sin" is anything remotely resembling right-wing or centrist thought, to the point where even doing outreach to people on the fence is considered a betrayal of the cause.
And you see it in some diet-based communities. Vegans who send death threats to folks that eat meat - and they don't stop if the target reveals that their health or finances preclude veganism (in fact they seem to get more aggressive, in my experience) - are the most well-known example. For militant vegans, animal products are treated just like mortals sins are in Christianity, and those who eat meat/wear fur/etc are shunned and harassed in ways much like how hyperconservative Christian communities shun and harass "sinners".
Paleos have not quite gotten to the same point: at the time of this writing, the militant ones "merely" tend to aggressively lecture others. Conversion rather than denigration. Their obsession with avoiding "unhealthy" (the search-and-replace for "sinful") products is no lesser, however.
In both dietary communities, the "sin" is a type of food, but otherwise the thought patterns match Christian purity culture.
Now, neither veganism nor paleo (nor the dietary choices I personally made) are automatically orthorexia. However, some portion of people - typically those already prone to obsessive patterns, which does seem to correspond somewhat to those vulnerable to purity culture - will fall into it, and in my experience (as one of them), they are the ones who start cutting off friends who don't perfectly align with their beliefs, refusing to read books/watch movies/etc that are "problematic" in any way, and so forth. Purity culture, de-Christianized and decoupled from sex.
Now, how to help people (people who often don't realize or want to believe something is wrong)? Many of the solutions are society-level: ensure people have autonomy over their lives so they don't spiral in an effort to gain some control over their bodies, reject binary thought generally, fight purity culture in all its forms. When it comes to individuals, my best advice (again, from my own experience) is to speak to them as if you're dealing with someone caught in an abusive relationship - just one with their own mind rather than with another person. Approach with an open mind. Ask genuine questions. Listen to their concerns. Tread carefully.
redthedragon asked, all shall receive: the case for orthorexia being a component of purity culture.First, a disclaimer on biases and sources. Orthorexia is not, at the moment, recognized by the major psychiatric manuals (DSM or ICD) and research on it is less common and more anecdotal than research on anorexia and bulimia. What I'm writing here is based partly based on case studies and testimonies reported online, and partly on my own observations of several orthorexics, chief among them myself and my oldest sibling. Take that into account as you read this.
Orthorexia, as defined here by the National Eating Disorders Association, is "an obsession with proper or 'healthful' eating". The manifestations vary as much as they do in other mental health disorders. In my case, a terror of animal death led to me avoiding meat, gelatin, and other products (not just foods) made from slaughtered animal parts (although foods that could indirectly kill animals via habitat destruction or poisoning were fine: mental disorders are not logical or reasonable, by their nature). In my sibling's case, a terror of death by cancer (which started around the time another family member died of cancer) led to increasingly rigid rules about foods and other products to avoid anything that might cause cancer (which was difficult, since only one product has ever been announced by the FDA to be "probably not oncogenic" and none have been declared completely safe). Other manifestations include an avoidance of anything "processed", only eating organic foods, extreme veganism, and so forth.
The very first thing I want to say about orthorexia is that, just like other eating disorders, the issues with food are merely a manifestation of something deeper. To use the best-known examples, anorexia and bulimia: the starvation/purging and general issues around food are not about food per se but about the person's relationship to their body, typically understood as "I want to be thinner". Even this isn't necessarily the root cause, however: the body image issues are typically built upon a foundation of anxiety, perfectionism, and a lack of control over one's own life (and therefore a desire to take some kind of control back over one's own body). I will note here that eating disorders are common among abuse victims (who are, by definition, disempowered) and trans people (who often struggle with their body not looking the way they want it to), and multiple people I've known have explicitly said that getting tattoos and other body modifications (thereby reclaiming their bodies at least a body) was a part of recovery.
(Other eating disorders exist. I won't analyze them here because they deserve more care than I am currently capable of at the moment.)
To expand on that point a bit, the orthorexics I know do not just obsess with foods but also with other products. I cannot wear leather or silk without experiencing the same distress as I get when I eat meat (my distress being horrifying, intrusive mental images of animals slowly and painfully dying - an OCD trait). My oldest sibling cut out not just gluten (tenuously linked to cancer) but also a huge variety of plastics and metals and other products that have been correlated with the disease.
To expand even further, however, the "cutting out" does not stop at products. Reading accounts from recovering orthorexics, I see a trend: of moral stances, on food and other things, that have no room for flexibility or nuance. Something - or someone - is either perfectly aligned with your views, or it is fully evil and must be banished. Many orthorexics will either stop speaking to or aggressively try to convert loved ones who don't follow their dietary/consumption restrictions (ask me about the lectures my sibling gave me for using the "wrong" deodorant, ugh).
I can personally attest that my obsession with only eating the "correct" foods was matched by an obsession with only spending time with "correct" people - people who agreed with me on everything. This led to me cutting people out people who, for example, used the word "stupid" (which I'd decided was verboten) as an insult. Other orthorexics show similar patterns: boycotting stores for selling forbidden products, refusing to enjoy a movie or book because it "glorifies" something they disagree with, only supporting political organizations that fully align with their own views, and, most terrifyingly to me, spending time only with others who share their opinions, creating a feedback loop of spiraling into further orthorexia and isolationism.
Now, how does this relate to purity culture? While purity culture is most commonly associated with Christian ideas on sexuality (specifically, avoiding it), it's much more than that: an avoidance of "sin" in any form. Whether we like it or not, Christian notions of virtue are pervasive in the United States. In US Christianity (having mostly lived in the US, I can't really speak to Christianity in other countries), children are taught from an early age that they are inherently sinful, that they must strive eternally to atone for this, that the outside world is full of evil trying to corrupt them, and that even thinking about sinning is a sin.
These ideas are explicitly taught to many Christian children, and are unconsciously absorbed by many people even outside those contexts. As they diffuse out of overtly Christian circles, they combine with US exceptionalism to create a - not necessarily religious, plenty of secular and atheist groups fall into this as well - dangerous worldview: that dogmatic adherence to a binary set of beliefs is good (the beliefs themselves vary from person to person and group to group), that compromise is an utter betrayal of one's morals, that anyone who doesn't fully agree with you on everything is evil and maybe not even human (hence not deserving of basic human rights) and that you must not even entertain their arguments. Many people have internalized these beliefs to some extent, often without knowing where they originated.
You see these beliefs in radical feminist circles, where the big "sin" to be excised is manhood. You see a newer variant of the radical feminist thinking in many online queer circles, where the "sin" is straightness.
You see these beliefs in some leftist groups as well, where the "sin" is anything remotely resembling right-wing or centrist thought, to the point where even doing outreach to people on the fence is considered a betrayal of the cause.
And you see it in some diet-based communities. Vegans who send death threats to folks that eat meat - and they don't stop if the target reveals that their health or finances preclude veganism (in fact they seem to get more aggressive, in my experience) - are the most well-known example. For militant vegans, animal products are treated just like mortals sins are in Christianity, and those who eat meat/wear fur/etc are shunned and harassed in ways much like how hyperconservative Christian communities shun and harass "sinners".
Paleos have not quite gotten to the same point: at the time of this writing, the militant ones "merely" tend to aggressively lecture others. Conversion rather than denigration. Their obsession with avoiding "unhealthy" (the search-and-replace for "sinful") products is no lesser, however.
In both dietary communities, the "sin" is a type of food, but otherwise the thought patterns match Christian purity culture.
Now, neither veganism nor paleo (nor the dietary choices I personally made) are automatically orthorexia. However, some portion of people - typically those already prone to obsessive patterns, which does seem to correspond somewhat to those vulnerable to purity culture - will fall into it, and in my experience (as one of them), they are the ones who start cutting off friends who don't perfectly align with their beliefs, refusing to read books/watch movies/etc that are "problematic" in any way, and so forth. Purity culture, de-Christianized and decoupled from sex.
Now, how to help people (people who often don't realize or want to believe something is wrong)? Many of the solutions are society-level: ensure people have autonomy over their lives so they don't spiral in an effort to gain some control over their bodies, reject binary thought generally, fight purity culture in all its forms. When it comes to individuals, my best advice (again, from my own experience) is to speak to them as if you're dealing with someone caught in an abusive relationship - just one with their own mind rather than with another person. Approach with an open mind. Ask genuine questions. Listen to their concerns. Tread carefully.
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