Kevin Klatt, PhD, RD

I had a reader ask "could you speak about how you integrate your nutrition knowledge into your own life without venturing into a disordered/obsessive mentality ?" I think this is a really pertinent question in the field of eating behavior at the moment. The health community is very focused on the idea of mindful eating; but when does mindful become manic? Health-minded communities, often focusing around what not to eat, have become quite zealous with their endeavors, leading to movements like "thinspo"/thigh gap glorification. There's the term, 'orthorexia', that I've seen thrown around a lot in reference to some of these restrictive health movements, although it is not considered a mental disorder in the DSM-V. However, it does get it's own page on nationaleatingdisorder.org (1). Concern over hyper-restriction of foods and its detrimental psychological outcomes has been talked about for a while in dietetics (2), though not researched as extens...