What happens when clean eating morphs into an unhealthy obsession

by Matthew Kadey

If you’re hunting for a better way to eat, there’s no shortage of diet advice out there. Will it be gluten-free or vegan keto? (Yes, that is a thing.) But for some athletes, including cyclists, the quest to clean up their diet can go way overboard.

In this era of hyper-focused diets, the lines between “good” and “bad” foods are getting blurred. We’re told that fruits and certain veggies have too much sugar, milk is a toxin and grains are leading to sagging energy levels on your rides. As for grain-fed beef – forget about it. But what starts as a worthy desire to “eat clean” can morph into an unhealthy obsession to rid the kitchen of anything that comes in a package and to demonize it as unclean. Eventually, your fixation on clean eating will leave you wondering why you are the only one not luxuriating in a mid-ride butter tart or brown-bagging a lunch when visiting your parent’s house.

Yes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. There’s an eating-disorder condition referred to as orthorexia nervosa: when a person goes overboard in a quest for healthful eating to the point where it becomes pathological. So while an individual begins with good intentions to improve eating habits by restricting and avoiding certain foods, the person can end up getting carried away, creating overly stringent and rigid rules that can have unintended psychological, health and performance consequences. Dare nibble on a cookie and you may feel like a failure. Let a nightshade vegetable pass by your lips and you think it’s a recipe for inflammation. A clean-eating obsession can also make someone preachy about diet and judgmental toward those who don’t follow the same narrow definition of healthful eating. It can affect relationships with friends and loved ones.

Clean eating and orthorexia

Depression, anxiety, social isolation and nutritional deficiencies are all possibilities with orthorexia. Research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found people with eating disorders had a greater likelihood of mental disorders and even premature mortality. You may have trouble meeting your energy and nutrient needs when you eat a narrow range of “allowable” foods. Then, your sports performance regresses. Your rides are dominated by “dead legs.” There can be a loss of muscle mass and an increase in health issues, including weakened bones. In other words, trying too hard to be healthy via strict clean eating can have the exact opposite effect. Plus, it will likely lead to a person feeling blasé about the diet. After all, there is only so much steamed chicken breast and broccoli seasoned with Himalayan pink salt that someone can eat before the palate cries uncle.

While there is a lack of hard science regarding the prevalence of eating disorders, such as orthorexia, a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that eating disorders remain common and their prevalence has increased between 2000 and 2018. The rise of social media likely has played a role. Seeing a pro rider flaunting a green smoothie on Instagram can leave us mortals feeling inadequate. A report in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders suggests that people who have an Instagram feed dominated by imagery of beautiful, clean foods are at a greater risk for obsessive eating patterns including orthorexia. It also doesn’t help that marketing terms we see every day on food labels that we’ve come to associate with healthy eating – such as “natural” and “pure” – are ambiguous enough to fit into our own subjective definitions and ideals.

What orthorexia isn’t

With all this said, just because you prefer to make pizza with cauliflower crust doesn’t mean your desire for clean eating has gone too far. If there are no social, mental or physical consequences about the way you eat then you don’t have orthorexia.

Yes, being obsessed with clean eating is not healthy for body or mind, but it’s still a very good idea to eat a diet centred around nutritious, whole foods for optimal performance and lasting health. It’s just that there is a safe way to do so. Firstly, have dietary guidelines, not strict rules. It’s better to view healthy eating as an overall pattern of choosing nutritious foods but where there is still room in your diet to wedge in a scoop of ice cream. This setup will give you all the nutrition you need for great health and fitness gains without the psychological pitfalls of being too focused on eating clean, full stop. After all, a little bit of “dirty food” will not ruin your KOM pursuits. Also, vet your nutrition sources. It’s best to take what you see online from social-media influencers and read in diet books with catchy titles with a huge grain of salt. If it sounds too good to be true (“cut out fruit and you’ll drop pounds instantly”) or not plausible (“ride better without carbs”) then it probably is. The diet du jour is likely not the answer. And always remember to stop beating yourself up and feeling ashamed about occasionally giving into potato-chip temptation. Learning to be more relaxed when it comes to dietary rules may help a person create a healthier eating pattern overall and get more enjoyment out of what’s on the dinner plate.

What to do if you think you may have orthorexia

In the end, if you suspect your clean-eating food rules have gotten in the way of gleaning any joy out of life, including out of your rides, it’s probably time to talk to someone. A professional who works with people with eating disorders is a good place to start. The pro can help you move away from labelling foods as good or evil aggressively. Soon you may once again fret a lot less when stuffing in a doughnut halfway through a century ride.