“Clean eating” has exploded in popularity, from a fixation on leafy greens to the normalization of juice-based diets. Nutrition should be respected, but labeling food as “clean” or “dirty” is just dieting by another name, and dieting is the most important predictor of a developing eating disorder. Struggling with a fixation on “clean” eating is not a DSM-5 diagnosis, but those struggling with the negative effects of restrictive eating gave the condition a name with a nod to eating disorders: orthorexia.
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References
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11 Marketdata Enterprises, 2010.