Nuggets of gold

One of the untold joys of sitting in a doctor's waiting room and thumbing through ancient magazines are the forgotten news nuggets one can mine.

I, for example, discovered yesterday a health condition from which I am never going to suffer. At mid-life, finding such a thing is gold. I know all the stuff I'm at risk of, but, my friends, I can tell you that I'll never suffer from orthorexia nervosa -- an obsession with health food.

"In 1997, Dr. Bratman coined the term 'orthorexia nervosa' to describe a condition he'd seen in some of his patients: obsession with healthy diet to such an extent that it seemed to him like an eating disorder."

From the 2001 issue of Canadian Living, here is Dr. Bratman's 10-question quiz to determine if you're at risk. If you answer 'yes' to two or three, you have a touch of orthorexia. Four or more and you're in trouble. In the interests of full disclosure, here are my answers.

1. Do you spend more than three hours a day thinking bout healthy food? (For four hours, give yourself two points.)
Yes. Oh, was that healthy food? Oh. Well, no.

2. Do you plan tomorrow's food today?
If I could plan today's food today, we wouldn't own shares in Kraft peanut butter.

3. Do you care more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure you receive from eating it?
Is this a serious question? I don't even stop to consider my own virtue let alone that of whatever I'm stuffing into my mouth.

4. Have you found that as the quality of your diet has increased, the quality of your life has correspondingly diminished?
Has the quality of my food ever increased? Hmmm. I'll have to get back to you on this one.

5. Do you keep getting stricter with yourself?
Definitely. Why only yesterday, I limited myself to one date square instead of two.

6. Do you sacrifice experiences you once enjoyed to eat the food you believe is right?
I believe Ambrose Bierce said it best: "Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego."

7. Do you feel an increased sense of self-esteem when you are eating healthy food? Do you look down on other who do not?
The only way I could ever look down on someone who ate less-healthy food than me would be if they subsisted on a diet made up entirely of deep-fried pork rinds. I do, on occasion, quaff a V-8, after all... There, I did just feel a tad superior.

8. Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?
Diet? What diet?

9. Does your diet socially isolate you from others?
Only if they insist on eating only healthy foods.

10. When you are eating the way you are supposed to, do you feel a peaceful sense of total control?
Eat the way I'm supposed to? As determined by whom? A peaceful sense of total control? Is it possible to feel at peace and in total control at the same time? I don't undertand the question.

______________________
I passed!

No orthoriexia nervosa here.

Have a great day,
Colleen