Posted: August 17th, 2009 - 12:51pm by Doug Powell

22-hour road trips from Florida to Manhattan (KS) make for many McDonald’s Egg McMuffin breakfasts, KFC lunches and no dinner, cause I’ve already blown the daily 5,000 calorie limit.

So it’s good to know that an obsession with eating healthily could also be bad for one’s health.

Experts have reported a rise in such extreme behaviour, known as orthorexia nervosa.

Sufferers or orthorexia nervosa tend to be over 30, middle-class and well-educated.

While anorexia patients restrict the quantity of the food they eat, sufferers of orthorexia, named after the Greek for 'right or true', fixate on quality.

The 'rules' vary from person to person, but the drive to eat only the healthiest foods can lead to sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods being eliminated from the diet. …

Sufferers tend to spend hours reading the latest food research, trawling health food stores and planning menus.

Deanne Jade, founder of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, said,

“I see people around me who have no idea they have this disorder. I see it in my practice and I see it in my friends and colleagues.'”

She believes the rise of the condition is linked to society's tolerance of food fads and those who promote them, from gym instructors to naturopaths, who prescribe changes in diet to treat illnesses.

Perhaps like whatever the U.K. National Centre for Eating Disorders is.