[exDemMom]

I have a client that I used to meet with once a month during the dinner hour. Had to quit because we couldn’t agree on a restaurant which had exactly the kind of food she thought she needed to survive. She will not eat anything that is not only organically grown but gluten, carbohydrate, fat, salt, sodium, sugar, and who knows what else free. Drank bottled water without ice cubes or lemon because she wasn’t sure how/where the lemon had been grown, whether it had been properly washed and, of course, the ice cubes were probably made with water which wasn’t filtered.

People like her just wear me out.

It sounds like she has orthorexia. It is an eating disorder characterized by an obsession with eating nothing but "healthy" foods. People with the disorder tend to cut whole food groups out. They do not have a working definition of "healthy", either.

I do not think the disorder is officially recognized, yet, but a definition is fairly well developed. When I first read about it, my reaction was, "Aha!" Because I was raised by a woman with this disorder. When I read expert opinions that orthorexia is not a disorder, but is just anorexia, I want to yell at them--go spend time with my mother and tell me orthorexia is nothing but anorexia! It is not!

There is a danger with orthorexia. It can be deadly, since people cut out so many "unhealthy" foods that they cannot get adequate nutrition. Orthorexic mothers have killed their babies by imposing their pathological food beliefs on them.

[Grams A]

It sounds like she has orthorexia.”

Actually what’s wrong with her is that she is a very, very liberal psychologist.

She continually complains because her insurance rates are going up but wants the state to pay her more for seeing people who have Medicaid insurance. Thinks she should be able to deduct the cost of stockings she wears to professional meetings as a business expense because otherwise she wouldn’t buy them.

If she has a pain or discomfort she goes on the internet and finds an exotic disease that fits those symptoms.

I could write volumes but you get the idea.