In light of the developments that we live with day after day and year after year, we have come to expect continuous updates and new inputs that impose themselves as a new reality that we are obligated to at least know, without following. One of the most prominent things that rose to the scene was people’s fear and preoccupation with healthy food for fear of getting sick, which turned into a fear of food, forgetting about getting sick!
This condition is referred to as the obsession with healthy eating or healthy eating disorder (Orthorexia nervosa), driven by a group of factors that contributed to its spread and people from different groups embracing it. What has happened so that people rush willingly towards new dietary patterns that seem beneficial on the surface, but they involve health problems that have begun to ring alarm bells warning of their consequences?
Obsession with healthy eating
The term “healthy eating disorder” was coined by the American physician Steven Bratman in 1997, who referred to it for the first time. It has recently jumped as one of the main topics in discussion circles that revolve around healthy eating and the extent to which it reflects on health.
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The world, both East and West, has been swept by people’s obsession with choosing healthy food and excessive preoccupation with obtaining organic and pure types of food, adhering to certain preparation methods and standards, and focusing on the type of food and quality.
Although healthy eating disorder is not classified as an approved eating disorder according to the latest versions of diagnostic standards, attention has begun to turn to it after the compass deviated from seeking ideal health and expelling diseases by choosing healthy foods to an obsession with thinness, losing weight, and obtaining a certain body shape through strict healthy eating.
Healthy eating disorder is associated with a set of disturbing behaviors represented by compulsive exercise, obsessive behaviors, and a tendency toward perfectionism in body appearance.
The seriousness of healthy eating disorder lies in its health, psychological, social, and professional consequences on the life of the person who suffers from it. His levels of stress and feelings of depression increase, job performance declines, communication abilities decrease, and the rate of satisfaction with what he has decreases, in addition to gradual malnutrition, so his life turns into a turmoil that prevents it from continuing as it should.
A remarkable spread of the obsession with healthy eating
Doctors and specialists seek to include the obsession with healthy eating in the list of eating disorders, but the lack of clarity of the presenting patterns that accompany it for diagnosis, in addition to the difficulty of distinguishing between a normal and healthy interest in food and pathological behavior in the same direction, delays the adoption of a unified definition and a consistent and accurate diagnosis for cases of healthy eating obsession.
However, statistical estimates indicating the prevalence of healthy eating disorder vary greatly according to the country, the population group studied, and the assessment tool used, based on what was published by researchers Niedzielski and Kasmirczak-Wojtas in 2021, who showed that the prevalence of healthy eating disorder among the general population ranges between 6.9% and 75.2%.
While it may reach 90.6% among certain groups, for example, it reached 76.2% among medical students at Inonu University in Turkey in 2017. It is certain that eating disorders have spread recently, recording numbers that require attention.
In a meta-analysis that included 30,476 participants from 18 countries around the world – two Arab countries, Jordan and Lebanon – it showed that men and women suffer from healthy eating disorders amounted to 30%, while the percentage of people at risk of eating disorders in general ranged between 23.8% and 34.8% in Arab countries, and the prevalence rate reached 3.2% according to a systematic review published in 2024.
Reasons for the spread of obsession with healthy food
According to published and observed data, it is likely that the reasons for the spread of obsession with healthy food and the phenomenon of excessive preoccupation with the type of food, regardless of its quantity, can be summarized through several factors:
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Social media and the search for perfection
With the expansion of its spread – which reached 59% globally – social media began to play a remarkable and pivotal role in directing some groups towards specific interests that turned into pathology in some cases, as is the case with healthy eating disorder.
For example, platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are now directing people’s behavior towards new eating habits in pursuit of nutritional challenges that some people market as the way to reach the ideal mental image of a healthy lifestyle, based on comparison that dissatisfies the heart of the follower and turns into excessive passion that exacerbates the symptoms of his healthy eating disorder.
In 2025, researchers from Portugal conducted a review of 17 studies in which they showed the role of social media in promoting the obsession with healthy eating among those who excessively use platforms such as Instagram and others, as they spend more time watching the spread of eating patterns – which claim to be ideal – and targeted nutritional content.
However, they pointed out that the same platforms may be a positive player for others by enhancing support and helping them recover from certain health problems if they are used more consciously.
These results were reinforced by another study previously published in 2023 on 653 young people from Spain, confirming that addiction to social media – especially the Instagram platform – is linked to a clear effect and a noticeable increase in the incidence of eating disorders in adolescents.
Excessive follow-up of nutrition and diet posts, thinness and fitness, exercises and muscle building via Instagram is associated with the emergence of symptoms of healthy eating disorder and muscle dysmorphic disorder, which represents an overwhelming desire to have muscular and drawn muscles according to hypothetical standards that have been mentally implanted among followers, according to a systematic review published by researchers from Germany and Spain in 2025.
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Obsession with the perfect body
Some research indicates that social media may have an indirect role in eating disorders, through its influence in shaping thinking patterns related to eating habits, and the psychological pressures and standards it imposes related to body shape and ideal weight, according to what these platforms promote.
Another study conducted in Australia on 558 women over a period of three months showed that excessive self-evaluation based on external appearance is associated with an increased risk of developing symptoms of healthy eating disorder.
Therefore, social media may establish default ideal body standards for followers, which may prompt them to adopt them without realizing the potential health risks, and this may develop into obsession and disordered eating behaviors.
On the other hand, the level of satisfaction with body shape can represent a protective factor against developing a healthy eating disorder, as a study published in 2024 that included an analysis of data from 1,253 adult women showed that a high level of satisfaction and body appreciation over a period of three months was associated with a lower rate of developing a healthy eating disorder, which confirms the importance of enhancing a positive mental image of the body as a means of preventing obsession with healthy eating.
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Knowledge and obsession with healthy food: a negative relationship
Some estimates indicate that a high level of awareness of dietary habits, knowledge of the types of foods, and detailed knowledge of them may increase the risk of preoccupation with the quality of food to a pathological extent, which is consistent with the symptoms of a healthy eating disorder.
This confirms the findings of a study published in 2022 in the journal L’Encéphale, conducted by Turkish researchers on 1,429 people, students and graduates of nutrition specializations. The results showed a high percentage of them suffering from a healthy eating disorder by 59.8%, as the percentage was higher among nutrition students (63.8%) compared to practicing specialists (52.9%).
While the incidence of healthy eating disorder among medical students at Ataturk University reached 43.6%, which enhances its prevalence among the health-literate class of nutritionists, nurses, and doctors alone, due to the psychological and social pressure that requires appearing with a fit body and a certain mental image.
However, it is noteworthy that the impact of healthy food obsession disorder may decrease with advancement in professional life and the development of critical thinking and self-evaluation strategies that help overcome such behaviors.
Some researchers also believe that the combination of nutritional knowledge with intellectual extremism and non-acceptance of other opinions contributes to the adoption of eating patterns that are closer to a healthy eating disorder, which appears represented by excessive preoccupation and strict adherence to these beliefs. Therefore, knowledge alone is not enough, but rather interacts with personal and intellectual traits to play a decisive role in shaping unhealthy nutritional behaviors.
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Relieve stress with healthy eating!
In 2022, researchers from Germany published a study in the journal Nutrients, which included 175 participants, in which they revealed that the effect of food on the body goes beyond the psychological aspect of participants who suffer from a healthy eating disorder.
8% of them believe that healthy food relieves the stress they suffer from, while another study conducted on 519 Lebanese in 2019 indicated that the psychological state (anxiety and depression) enhances impulsive traits towards adopting food behaviors related to the obsession with healthy eating, so deciding on the results requires conducting further studies to bridge the gap and confirm the nature of the relationship, whether it is causal or not between the obsession with healthy eating and the psychological state.
