Is #cleaneating culture dangerous?

In a world obsessed with body image, attitudes towards food and diet are increasingly moulded by social media, where idealised dieting culture reigns supreme.

Here, we look at ‘clean eating’ culture – how it can lead to unhealthy eating, and how to recognise signs that you or a loved one is developing a problem.

Dieting culture has adopted a sharper edge in the age of social media. And at the heart is ‘clean eating’, a culture of only eating whole and unprocessed foods popularised by groups like Instagram and Twitter’s #eatclean.

Clean eating is less of a diet than an approach to dieting. It might involves aspects of the alkaline diet. Or the paleo diet. Or veganism. It might be based on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Clean Beauty guide, which draws insights from dieting guru Dr Alejandro Junger and instructs people to abstain from things like dairy, gluten, nightshades, and grapefruits.

But is this culture one of help or harm?

For British food writer and TV personality Nigella Lawson, it’s the latter. In 2015, she railed against the “mantra of clean eating,” calling out the culture of body judgement that stems from it. “Behind the notion of clean eating is the implication that any other form of eating is dirty or shameful,” she told BBC’s Radio 4. “Food should not be used as a way of persecuting oneself.”

Although social media has elevated the visibility of this trend, clean eating culture is certainly nothing new. Indeed, “There was even a term before it called ‘healthism’,” says Dr Ashley Ng, an accredited practicing dietitian and lecturer at La Trobe University’s department of dietetics and human nutrition. “On social media you have a bigger reach. It’s just a different medium in terms of perpetuating unhealthy behaviour, with trends and fads [that] get people into different diet cycles.”

On the dangerous side of obsessive clean eating is ‘orthorexia nervosa’, which an estimated 6.5 per cent of Australians suffer from. People with orthorexia – which is not clinically classified as an eating disorder – tend to spend an unusual amount of time thinking about and planning meals, feel anxious or guilty about unhealthy eating, and eliminate more and more foods from their diet.

Derived from the Greek word ‘orthos’ (meaning ‘right’ or ‘proper’), the term was developed in the late-1990s by American alternative medicine physician Dr Steven Bratman, who subsequently authored the book Health Food Junkies: Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating.

According to Dr. Bratman, orthorexia develops as an “extreme, obsessive, psychologically limiting and sometimes dangerous” compulsion towards healthy eating. He first observed it in the late 1970s while living in a commune in upstate New York. Here, he lived with people who believed that vegetables needed to be dipped in bleach before cooking to rid them of impurities. Or refused to eat ‘deadly’ nightshade foods, like tomatoes and eggplants.

“Many of the most unbalanced people I have ever met are those [who] have devoted themselves to healthy eating,” Dr Bratman later wrote. “They classify foods as ‘pure’ or ‘unpure’, or ‘clean’ or ‘un-clean’,” says Dr Ng. “A very black and white way of seeing food.”

Naturally, the knock-on of prolonged orthorexia can be dire: “All the usual health consequences like organ failure [and] malnourishment,” says Dr Ng. Plus, “Your body basically starts to eat itself from the inside out.” In its extreme, orthorexia can even be fatal.

Dr Ng is optimistic that the culture around clean eating is slowly changing. “We’re starting to get people talking about weight bias and being accepting of your own body. All of those things are good steps towards positive cultural change and developing a healthy relationship with the body and food,” she says.

That said, for better or worse diet culture will likely always exist, Dr Ng believes. Closing the gap between healthy and obsessive eating, then, is really about finding a compromise that allows you to achieve health goals without being led “down the pathway of disorder eating.”

“Any diet [is] going to drastically change the way you’re eating,” says Dr Ng. The problem, though, is that people focus more on immediate rather than long-term change. “They want that magic bullet.”

The secret, Dr Ng says, is finding balance. Both in terms of attitude and approach. This could mean embracing certain aspects of a diet. There are lots of positives elements to the paleo method, for instance, like “reducing processed foods [and] knowing your vegetables,” she says.

It also means cutting yourself some slack. “Recognising that it’s okay to have that popcorn once in a while,” Dr Ng says. “That you don’t have to be super strict about everything you eat in your life – that there’s more to life than just food.”

Learn more about eating disorders and finding treatment in Australia here.

Staff writers come from a range of backgrounds including health, wellbeing, music, tech, culture and the arts. They spend their time researching the latest data and trends in the health market to deliver up-to-date information, helping everyday Australians live healthier lives. This is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances. The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances 

Disclaimer:
The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as financial, medical, health, nutritional, tax or other advice. It does not take into account any individual’s personal situation or needs. You should consider obtaining professional advice from a financial adviser and/or tax specialist, or medical or health practitioner, in relation to your own circumstances and before acting on this information.