Annual Eating Disorders Awareness campaigns are launched across Canada during the first week of February. British Columbia’s campaign will focus on orthorexia — an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating

Eating Disorders awareness campaigns begin across Canada each year during the first week in February. The national campaign is led by Canada’s National Eating Disorders Information Centre in Toronto, while various provinces hold their own concurrent campaigns.

Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness – it is estimated that 10% of individuals with AN will die within 10 years of the onset of the disorder.

British Columbia’s provincial campaign is coordinated under the initiative love our bodies…love ourselves. B.C.’s 2018 campaign will emphasize education and awareness about orthorexia, a phenomenon where healthy eating becomes an unhealthy obsession.

Those who have an “unhealthy obsession” with otherwise healthy eating may be suffering from “orthorexia nervosa,” a term which literally means “fixation on righteous eating.” Orthorexia starts out as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, but orthorexics become fixated on food quality and purity. They become consumed with what and how much to eat, and how to deal with “slip-ups.”  — National Eating Disorders

We speak with Joanna Zelichowska, manager of the Jessie’s Legacy Eating Disorders Prevention Program, with physician Dr. Steven Bratman, who introduced the term orthorexia nervosa and wrote a book about it called Health Food Junkies, and with Alicia Putinski, an orthorexia-recovered life coach and personal trainer.

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