Abstract

Orthorexia nervosaOrthorexia nervosa is most frequently described as a fixation with healthy eating. Although orthorexia nervosaOrthorexia nervosa has yet to be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and much debate persists as to its prevalence and criteria for its diagnosis, many mental healthHealth clinicians have observed the growing prevalence of the condition. However, the contemporary imperative in the United States to “care for” one’s body through foodFood, which includes the employment of nutritional knowledge and often the identification of “good” and “bad” foodsFood, the diagnostic criteria for orthorexia reflect what are, to some degree, normalised, even valorised, approaches to foodFood in American society. This chapter explores contestation over the productionProduction of orthorexia as a diseaseDisease within medical and lay discourses. This essay also considers how self-identified recovering orthorexics make use of both the contested diagnosis criteria and the contested condition itself in narrating the trajectories of their experiences. Given that ON's existence is still debated and that solid empirical data on its prevalence is lacking, these authors play an important role in normalising the notion that healthful eating can become unhealthy.