Orthorexia Nervosa

The term “orthorexia” derives from the Greek orthos, meaning “right, correct”, and orexis, meaning appetite. The term “orthorexia nervosa” was coined by the US physician Steven Bratman and is intended to refer to a psychogenic eating disorder, analogous to anorexia nervosa. Orthorexia nervosa is therefore understood as an eating disorder characterized by extreme value placed on supposedly healthy nutrition and the establishment of arbitrary dietary rules for this purpose, the health benefits of which are often questionable and can lead to malnutrition and psychosocial problems in extreme cases (Bratman and Knight 2000). In orthorexia, the focus is not on the amount of food consumed, as is the case with anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating disorder, but on its quality. Orthorexia is currently not listed as an official disorder in the common classification systems of mental disorders.