One person who has revealed her personal journey through orthorexia is Jordan Younger, a popular blogger called the Blonde Vegan. She initially started paring down her diet because she had stomach issues.

She found that veganism helped with these (not eating foods that originate from animals). After practicing veganism for some time and gathering a large online following, she moved across the country away from her family and started doing juice cleanses.

Eventually, she was on a cleanse for the majority of each week, and she found she couldn’t digest solid foods very well anymore, which started a cyclical pattern of off-and-on cleansing (mostly on). She found herself obsessing over what she would eat each day and stayed up nights, anxiety-filled, mostly about her diet.

She wasn’t sleeping, she was stressed out, she lost so much weight that she did not feel strong in any respect. Finally, she got some help and now lives a “label-free” life where she “listens to her body” to determine her eating patterns.

Younger is just one example of how orthorexia can spiral out of control. The insidiousness of this problem is that on the outside, it feels as though you are doing what is best for your body.

The Journal of Eating Disorders (JED) lists these signs that to consider if you think you or someone you know may be suffering from orthorexia.

• Spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about food or what to eat: the JED lists three hours as a benchmark
• Feeling a sense of superiority to others and their eating habits
• Feeling bad about yourself if you deviate from the self-imposed diet guidelines
• Making eating healthfully the focus of your life and allowing it to take precedence over other values, like family time or favorite hobbies