Are You Eating Too Clean?

Turns out there is such a thing as eating too clean. Here’s what you need to know about this latest eating disorder — and why you might want to dirty up your diet a bit.

- Matthew Kadey, MS, RD

These days, a food is either classified as good or bad: Vegetables and fruit are righteous and “clean,” while cookies, ice cream and french fries are sinful, guilty pleasures. But in an era of hyper-focused diets — keto, Paleo, vegan, Mediterranean — these lines are getting blurred. Depending on who you ask, certain fruits and veggies have too much sugar, butter is a superfood, milk is a toxin and wheat — even the whole-grain variety — causes a belly pooch and flagging energy.

An unintended consequence of this food shaming is that, for some people, the quest to clean up their diets goes way overboard and they head down a path toward disordered eating. Maybe your initial goal was to kick your sugar habit, but you are now obsessed with reading labels and completely avoid anything sweet. Or perhaps a well-intentioned goal to banish processed foods now manifests as an irrational fear of anything sold in a package. Regardless of how you arrived there, you might be eating too clean — and are ironically now putting your health at risk.

A NEW NERVOSA

While healthy eating is important for your overall health and fitness gains, it is not uncommon to take it too far. “Orthorexia nervosa occurs when someone goes overboard in their quest for healthful eating to the point where it becomes pathological,” says Thom Dunn, Ph.D., professor of psychological sciences at the University of Northern Colorado.