An old addition of mine on a post about veganism recently crossed my dash organically, and coincidentally just after I encountered a really sad and unfortunate example of exactly what that addition was about. It occurs to me that it's probably worth recirculating just that addition, without the long conversational back-and-forth that lead up to it, because it's still as relevant as it was when I made it. So, here goes:
As many people have pointed out, some stripes of militant veganism look suspiciously like eating disorders.
This because they are eating disorders.
The term for this specific type of eating disorder is orthorexia nerviosa, and while it is not limited to vegans, it can absolutely manifest in and be camouflaged through a vegan lifestyle.
compulsively follow rules relating to your veganism, and harshly punish yourself, either physically or mentally, for ever accidentally deviating from them?
have extreme anxiety over the possibility of compromising your veganism, either on purpose or accidentally?
bury yourself in research about the benefits of veganism and the detriments of other diets (eg. obsessively watch incendiary animal welfare videos, despite knowing that they trigger you; obsessively research and collect vegan recipes and read vegan lifestyle blogs in a way that goes beyond being enthusiastic about cooking as a hobby; etc.)?
have rules relating to veganism which get harsher and harsher over time (eg. only eating backyard eggs -> never eating any eggs; only eating ethically sourced honey -> never eating any honey; reducing your processed sugar consumption -> obsessively cutting all processed foods out of fear of accidentally consuming sugar with bone fragments; promoting veganism as a positive lifestyle choice -> feeling like you’re not doing enough unless you actively attack all diets which are less restrictive than your own, etc.)?
are losing weight to a noticeable and continuing degree, even after your body should have adjusted to your new diet?
have problems in your social relationships due to your diet to a degree which is impacting your mental well-being?
are convinced that your self-worth and value as a person is intrinsically tied to your diet, and that any deviations from your specific vegan diet will make you worthless as a person?
Please talk to your doctor about orthorexia, and consider seeing a specialist. Eating disorders are serious, and can be deadly, and orthorexia is one of the most under-diagnosed eating disorders because people often do not notice that it has developed until they are extremely malnourished and have done permanent damage to their physical and mental health.
Veganism isn’t the problem per se. Lots of vegans can live perfectly healthy lifestyles. But the danger with orthorexia is specifically the fact that none of the justifications for it are inherently bad. You can have a perfectly good rationale for what you’re doing when you start, and then your mental illness will slowly boil the frog, cutting food after food and creating new rationalization after new rationalization, until where you end up is literally killing you. And that’s the same no matter how you get there.
Gym bunnies who develop orthorexia by dramatically cutting carbs and worrying over their macros in a way that just happens to result in them eating half the calories that they should be getting? Well, there’s nothing inherently wrong with body building! Health food obsessives who cut category after category of food over fear of GMOs and pesticides and contamination? Well, there’s nothing inherently wrong with leaning organic! People who want to avoid food produced through human exploitation, who start by buying fair trade coffee and chocolate, and then eventually expand what human exploitation they’re worried about until they can’t shop at any normal grocery store, and can’t eat at any restaurant or any friend’s house under any circumstances? Refusing to support exploitation is a good thing! But pull the curtain back on these explanations and what you actually have is a disordered brain doing everything it possibly can to starve itself, without ever consciously admitting that that’s the goal.
If your veganism is starting to cause severe disruptions in your life, either physically, mentally, or socially, see a doctor.
stormborns
izzy806
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
areudirty
