This post is a little past its shelf life, but I figured I'd publish it up anyway. On the tail of Angelo Coppola's remarks on Jimmy Moore's 10 Things Paleo needs to address so I can continue scamming off of "paleo" post -- blogged on here -- Emily Deans over at Evolutionary Psychiatry picked up on another aspect of Angelo's remarks. If you missed it, the first post was Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community, and she followed up with Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community: Further Considerations. If I have one general criticism it is that I'm not entirely sure Angelo was talking about orthorexia when he listed "Recognizing and addressing eating disorders among those who are trying Paleo approaches" among his suggestions countering Jimmy's.
So while they are excellent posts, I fear the focus on the more controversial orthorexia overshadows what I see/saw quite frequently -- the development of binge eating disorders. I'm not so worried about the orthorexics so long as they don't sanctimoniously lecture me about my supposed addictions and failings or inflict their diets and dogma too stringently on their children. And even those who do, hopefully there are people in real life looking out for those kids, because the internet really isn't the forum to discuss such matters constructively. No, I'm more concerned for those who previously ate "normally" who now binge frequently and seek assistance breaking the cycle. It's the people continually falling off the wagon or having the wheels coming off their wagons, hence the title of this post, that I think of when someone mentions the lack of attention to ED in the community. Whether or not this is what Angelo was referring to or it was orthorexia I don't know. Both need to be addressed, IMO, but when I hear "eating disorders" I can't help but think bulimia and to a lesser extent anorexia in the Incestral Health Community. (I won't address anorexis in the remainder of this post, except to say there are some fairly prominent folks in the IHC who may possibly be. Also, for some reason paleo seems to attract a cadre of recovering anorexics whose specific needs possibly tenuous states are often ignored when blanket advice is being doled out.)
So while they are excellent posts, I fear the focus on the more controversial orthorexia overshadows what I see/saw quite frequently -- the development of binge eating disorders. I'm not so worried about the orthorexics so long as they don't sanctimoniously lecture me about my supposed addictions and failings or inflict their diets and dogma too stringently on their children. And even those who do, hopefully there are people in real life looking out for those kids, because the internet really isn't the forum to discuss such matters constructively. No, I'm more concerned for those who previously ate "normally" who now binge frequently and seek assistance breaking the cycle. It's the people continually falling off the wagon or having the wheels coming off their wagons, hence the title of this post, that I think of when someone mentions the lack of attention to ED in the community. Whether or not this is what Angelo was referring to or it was orthorexia I don't know. Both need to be addressed, IMO, but when I hear "eating disorders" I can't help but think bulimia and to a lesser extent anorexia in the Incestral Health Community. (I won't address anorexis in the remainder of this post, except to say there are some fairly prominent folks in the IHC who may possibly be. Also, for some reason paleo seems to attract a cadre of recovering anorexics whose specific needs possibly tenuous states are often ignored when blanket advice is being doled out.)
