Orthorexia: When Healthy Eating Becomes Unhealthy

When you think of dietitians, you probably think of, well, diets. It's right there in the name, and most dietitians are devoted to helping people follow regulated diets that will, in theory, make them healthier. Heather Caplan isn't like most dietitians. The certified running coach and host of the RD Real Talk podcast believes diets are nothing but counterproductive and that "diet culture" is full of hidden agendas and falsehoods detrimental to our wellbeing and mentality towards food. Not just that, but dieting can go way too far, causing conditions like orthorexia in which an unhealthy fixation on eating healthy can lead to symptoms like hair loss, difficulty sleeping, chronic fatigue, anemia, and hypothyroidism. You read that right. Too much healthy eating can be unhealthy. That's why Heather exercises a non-diet approach at her private practice in Washington, DC, helping runners relearn the "intuitive" eating that diet culture can make so foreign to us. In this episode, Heather discusses the pitfalls of diets, shares her firsthand account with orthorexia, and gives us some tips on how to adopt intuitive eating for optimal health and performance.