That's not what orthorexia nervosa is at all. Healthy eating has never been, nor will it ever be, considered an eating disorder. If you want to be smarter than other people in regard to what orthorexia is, keep on reading.

An orthorexic person can start off eating very healthy and everything's great. But then they think, "hey, why don't I cut out gluten? I feel inflamed sometimes and gluten causes inflammation. Gluten bothers a lot of people, and honestly, carbs are the devil and I should avoid them anyway."

So now you're eating your healthy diet minus gluten. Still ok.

But then you think, "There is a lot of saturated fat in this red meat. Saturated fat is full of calories and red meat is associated with all kinds of unhealthy things. I'm going to stick to chicken and fish"

Ok, still healthy eating. No problem, really.

Then you think "I've gotta cut out chicken. They're fed all this weird stuff and given hormones and antibiotics. There's no way that's good for me".

So you're basically a pescatarian now. Still, no problem! Not an issue!

Then you cut out fish because fish have mercury and mercury is neurotoxic. But it's okay, because you're substituting animal-based proteins with plant-based proteins. You've done your research. You're still getting adequate nutrition.

But then you realize you're still eating eggs and dairy, and those come from animals. Animals aren't as clean as vegetables, so you should cut out milk and dairy to be extra healthy.

You're now a vegan. But you've read up on how to ensure you're satisfying all your macronutrient and micronutrient needs. So, still healthy. Not a problem. Many people end up vegan like this and most of them are quite healthy. This is still not orthorexia nervosa. Just the path to it. Most people stop at this point on the path and absolutely DO NOT have an eating disorder.

But then our hypothetical person, in all his/her research on the subject of nutrition, discovers that cooking their food really zaps a lot of the nutrition. They want to do things RIGHT. What's the use of eating so many "natural" plants, when you're depleting them of their nutrients by cooking them? So you become raw vegan. You're tracking all your nutrition needs and making sure they are met. It's difficult, but nothing great was ever achieved without great effort, right? So you keep on with this lifestyle, knowing that you are a lean, mean, raw vegan machine.

But then you find out there are "dirty" and "clean" vegetables and fruits. You're concerned about pesticides and other 'unnatural' things going in your body. So you avoid the dirty list as much as possible. Eventually, you aim to forego all of those plants unless you've grown them yourself or a friend you trust grew them.

Your menu is severely limited now. You plan your weekly meals in advance. You make cashew cheese from scratch. You trade recipes with other obsessive raw vegans. You all support each other, ensuring one another that you're doing the right thing and other people "just don't get it".

But you don't feel as great as you think you should. You remember that article you read that said your fats should only come from foods in their natural forms. So you cut out olive oil, coconut oil, etc. You end up eating a lot of avocados. They're full of fat AND on the 'clean' list! What a miracle fruit!

Now that your list of foods is so restricted, you spend all your time thinking about food. Talking about food. Trying to tell people how excellent your life is now that you only eat like ten things. You feel in control. You feel energetic. You feel powerful. You've overcome the demon of "unhealthy" food. You have no life outside your small handful of friends that eat similarly, and most those friends are online, not in-the-flesh. You stop hanging out with friends and family that you were once close to because they won't shut up about your "lifestyle" and how they're "concerned" about how you're eating. You KNOW you're better than them, you just wish they'd understand how much healthier they could be if they just would try things your way. They keep trying to get you to eat things you know are evil, so you just stop interacting with them unless absolutely positively necessary.

You've stranded yourself on an island where your only friends are the sense of control you get from sticking to your cumbersome, superior diet and people who are similarly obsessed with what they put in their mouths. You don't feel as healthy as you could, so you convince yourself there must've been a pesticide sprayed on those cabbages you ate on Monday. Later in the week, you still feel bad. So you decide it's because you're not exercising enough. Regardless of how you feel, you know you're doing the right thing. You're not putting any of those awful, unclean foods in your body. You're a machine and you run flawlessly. You stopped researching foods a long time ago because you know better than some blogger.

Orthorexia and anorexia are both, in my opinion, subsets of obsessive compulsive disorder. You cannot stop yourself once the obsession takes hold. If you could, it wouldn't be a disorder! Your life starts to fall apart piece by piece. Your diet is what you live for. You may not have control over your boss, other drivers on the road, the weather....but you DO have control over what you put in your mouth and no one can take that away from you. It is your bedrock. You are strong because you have the control to not eat things you shouldn't. It doesn't matter if your hair is falling out, or your skin is dulling. What matters is that you are in control of what you ingest. You are the master of your body. You know what needs to be done and you are doing it. To incorporate something like meat or bread in your diet would be defeat, even though deep down you know your body is screaming for it. But you ignore that voice. Because that little voice is the voice of weakness. And you are not weak. You are achieving perfection! What could possibly be wrong with that?

It's an eating disorder because it is destructive. Normal healthy eating IS NOT DESTRUCTIVE and therefore is not disordered.