Following a diet often brings one a sense of fulfillment to the overall wellbeing of one’s body. Abiding by certain dietary restrictions may make you feel like you’re doing something right. However, equally, restricted eating habits have the potential to wreak havoc in your physical and mental wellbeing. When the foods you choose to restrict start having an impact on the way you live you life, such that the pure joy of sharing a meal has dwindled, it might be time to start asking if it is more of a problem than just a diet.

Lately, it seems as though there is a diet for everything. Chances are, you or someone you know, has jumped on a bandwagon. This dietary wagon come in many shapes and sizes: it could be paleo, raw, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, fat-free, intermitted eating, low-carb, no carb, eat right for your blood type—the list literally never ends.

How we became so misguided in our eating habits

It used to be that your dietary habits were mostly comprised from what you learned from your parents. Today, that is no longer so, with people taking action to reclaim their health, standing up to food monopolizers and considering how food is treated prior to purchase. The common motivations for following a diet are to look and feel better, to live by personal ethics and/or to serve health purposes. As it would seem, most diets can have a positive impact on your health and life, but it can also be that the fixation upon restricted eating sometimes borders on the edge of a disordered eating style.

Traditionally, people would eat whatever their land or surroundings produced. In other words, whatever was available to them. While mountain dwellers ate game, coastal people subsisted off fish. Now, we live in a time where there is an abundance of food. We are spoilt for choice, and all foods are available within arms reach, all the time, all year round. This kind of accessibility has lead to over-indulgence and gluttony, and is contrasted with dieting and restricted eating patterns. Pair these circumstances with conflicting dietary advice and society’s skewed ideology on body health and beauty, and you’re left with a public that is extremely confused and faced with unreachable body goals.
A classic manifestation of the public’s confusion surrounding this topic comes in the form of fad diets. In the search to look and feel better, it’s common for people to follow fad diets.

Undoubtedly, our diet is a major part of our life. It represents how we look and feel, and even how we identify with ourselves. It is something to be considered every time we eat, several times a day. While it takes diligence and hard work to maintain certain diets, it also brings a real sense of achievement and fulfillment. The positive psychological feedback can promote wellbeing in and of itself. On the flip side, if a diet is broken this may result in the associated feelings of guilt. This notion that one has failed oneself can often resonate with the mentality behind other eating disorders such as obesity, anorexia and bulimia.

When dieting turns into something else

An eating disorder is characterized by a complex range of food centric emotional and physiological behaviors that cause severe disturbances in eating patterns. This is not to say that everyone on a certain diet develops an eating disorder, but that keeping up with the demands of some of these eating styles affect more aspects of life than the simple pleasures of eating. Clearly, following a diet and having an eating disorder are not one in the same, but when the demands of diet begin to cause emotional or physical distress, the lines are blurred.

Some diets can be so limiting that they require strict and firm meal planning, making eating on the go nearly impossible and social events an awkward state of hunger. Restricted diets have also been found to trigger orthorexia, which is according to Steven Bratman, the man whole coined the term, is an “emotionally disturbed, self-punishing relationship with food that involves a progressively shrinking universe of foods deemed acceptable.”

Orthorexia manifests itself as an unhealthy eating obsession. Adopting a diet that promotes one’s health is a smart choice, but when the restrictions one’s diet entails become taxing and severe, it may be time to take a step back and reevaluate. If you find that your daily agenda and thought processes revolve around your diet, it’s possible you may identify with the symptoms of orthorexia.

A healthy balance between restricted eating and an eating disorder

It’s important to know how what we eat effects us. But when a diet becomes our life and it’s something we so strongly identify with, such that it hinders other aspects of your life, it’s high time to consider what the reasons behind it.

You might want to ask yourself such questions:
• Do you notice any eating patterns connected to certain feelings and emotions?
• Would you be able to change your habit without triggering of distress?
• Do you over analyze every bit of food?
• Do you use food to respond to certain situations?

Acknowledge how strict, restrictive or controlled your diet is, and consider the initial motives as an indicator as to if it’s more that just a selective way of eating. If there is a diet that interests you for health reason, do some homework and understand the pros and cons of its effects. Be aware of what nutrients and vitamins you might be forfeiting, and whether you can source their substitute. Remember that eating healthy is about having variety and good quality, and should be about enjoyment and feeling good, not restriction.