You always hear if you exercise and eat healthy you are on the road to longevity. Eating healthy has always been half of the equation. If you don’t eat healthy or have a “clean diet” there’s a good chance that ideal weight will be very tough to achieve.

People don’t always eat healthy to lose weight or to get that trim look, yet are trying to avoid other health concerns such as diseases or cancer. Some people go as far as to not cooking their food! Now many people think that’s weird, yet these same people that consume raw food believe this is the healthiest way to eat.

You also have people that only eat from one food group because they believe the other food groups are poisonous to the body. Taking all of this into consideration, is it possible to eat too healthy? Well, against popular belief some new studies have found that there is a possible disorder for eating too healthy. Obsession for eating too healthy is called Orthorexia nervosa.

Orthorexia nervosa is not officially recognized as a disorder, yet there are signs for this potential problem. Someone with Orthorexia will become overly conscientious on what they eat and when they eat it. One example is someone following a more extreme version of a vegan diet and only consuming fruits and a small amount of vegetables (i.e. leafy greens).

This extreme diet limits their caloric intake even though a person may be eating continuous throughout the day. It was also found if a person with this possible disorder ever cheated on their diet, they would punish themselves with extreme exercise or regurgitation of the food.

The studies found that most individuals with this convoluted way of eating may have lost a large quantity of weight and are trying to never go back to how they used to look. Other underlying reasons may be due to gain personal control, having a low self-esteem, or obsession in preventing poor health.

Even though Orthorexia appears to be rare, the numbers of cases are growing. Eating healthy and living healthy are two awesome things that any individual can do to better their life. Just don’t let it consume your life.

-Tom