Do you sacrifice experiences you once enjoyed to eat the food you believe is right?
Who doesn't when they're following a diet that excludes most of the socially available foods at parties and gathers?

Does your diet socially isolate you?
Again, if you can't browse with the herd, sometimes its just easier to avoid those situations entirely. Especially for someone just starting out on a new way of eating. You can't believe the angst that newly diagnosed Celiac's experience because they feel the disease is going to isolate them.

When eating the way you are supposed to, do you feel a peaceful sense of total control?
Hell yes! Its always good to be able to stick with the plan.

Have you found that as the quality of your diet has increased, the quality of your life has correspondingly diminished?
Here again, just go hang out at the Celiac message forum. Most of those people feel like their quality of life has diminished since they've had to give up one of the most prevalent foods in our society. I think I was kind of fortunate to come across my gluten intolerance after having been low carb for such a long time. I'd already been through the mourning over foods I couldn't eat and changing my diet again wasn't THAT big of a deal.

I don't think they've really captured the essence of a disorder with their questions. The net is too big, captures too many other fish.

Nancy, I think that's the point that several of us have been trying to make. Aside from the fact that nobody should be trying to diagnose themselves in the first place, nobody is going to do it accurately or correctly with some 10 question pop psychology quiz off the internet. The questions themselves are so broad that they do a better job of creating needless worry in people than actually helping a few recognize that they may have a problem (remember that whole denial thing?).

Here is a quote from the OP:


There's at least a couple of problems with this in that anyone on a diet is likely to answer yes to 2 and potentially a lot more of the questions such as questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 at least. The OP didn't specify that those who are on a diet or learning a new way of eating don't qualify as orthorexic according to the man who coined the term; I found that by doing a little digging. No 10 question quiz off the internet is going to determine anything for certain, least of all an OCD type illness.
I would think that a mental health professional would be a bit more reliable than an internet quiz.

I just wonder if these people get paid to make up these quizes, cause I could use some extra spending money and know without a doubt I could make up one that was way more convincing than that one.

This is going to be off-topic, but please bear with me; I recently read a wonderful book about being insane. It's written by a woman with a lot of experience on the subject; the author was a psychiatric patient for ten years, suffering from schizofrenia, but she recovered completely. She says about a third of schizofrenics get completely healthy eventually.

Anyway, this author talks about how psychiatric patients lose some, or a lot, of their usual language, because in the institution "sad" doesn't mean sad, it means depressed. "Scared", or even "angry" means anxiety to the doctors and nurses, so the patients learn to talk like that, too. She says that in the hospital her old dream (formed long before she got sick) of becoming a psychologist was just a symptom. She had had that goal for many years, but in the hospital it was just identification with her therapist... Just another symptom of her sick mind, in other words. It's part of the story that she really did achieve it, and now works as a clinical psychologist.

What I mean by all this is that the thought patterns that mean being healthy to most of us, can easily mean a medicable disease to health professionals. The meaning of a comcept can vary with what side of the fence you are on. Please, if you aren't worried already for good reason, don't let this article worry you about being sick. Chances are good that you are not!

I would love to recommend the book to you all, but am reasonably sure it's only printed in Norwegian at the moment... It's called "I morgen var jeg alltid en løve" (Tomorrow, I was always a lion), by Arnhild Lauvnes. Brilliant book; it was in my pile of Christmas presents...

Food has been an underpinning of religion and culture since these things were first part of the human condition. I recommend the book "Cannibals and Kings" for a more detailed analysis of the phenomenon.

Dear Hybrid,
You need to understand the background to my statement to fully appreciate my comment. I was introduced to the sabbatical diet 6 months now by Coolwater and is amazed at how my body has responded to this diet. Not only have I lost 3 inches off my waist but my wife claims the firmness of my body has gone beyond where it matter most to include my generalized structure. The guys at my sport club want to know what I am on. A few have started the program and are reaping good results.I no long have Orthorexia because all I need to remember is the morning I should fast. The other mornings I have a heavy breakfast. The rest of the day is irrelevant as to what I may consume and when. Now Is the sabbatical doctor a genius? He says in the book that he is not. He claims that why man has failed to solve the diet problem is based on the worldview he uses to find his answer.This is to say are we an accident or creatures of design.

Understand that my diet has my own religious underpinnings as well. The URL specified on my profile page shows how my worldview influences my diet.

I'm a creature of birth.