Why we fell for clean eating

[chromedome]

The unfortunate thing about nutritional studies in general is that it's basically impossible to design one that meets the same standards of scientific rigor we'd apply to other fields. For starters, you'd ideally need two complete, separate human populations of statistically significant size that you could feed with completely controlled diets over a period of decades, ideally with regular monitoring by medical professionals. That's not going to happen any time soon (unless, say, an autocrat like Kim Jong Un takes an interest in nutrition) so the best we're left with is the usual cohort studies and meta studies.

 

In other words, whatever your prejudices and predilections, you're likely to find studies backing them.

 

In my own specific case I've cooked Atkins/keto for my GF, who paddles in that pool occasionally, but I can't do it myself. Whole grains are my personal staple, from my morning steel-cut oats onward, and I'd probably find it easier to go vegan than to go keto. My feeling is that most people need to eat a *wider* variety of foods, not to arbitrarily cut out whole classes of them, and (of course) I could cite any number of studies to support that as well.

[chromedome]

As a sort of epilogue to this thread (no wonder I had trouble finding it, it's been a year already!), some academics are questioning when "orthorexia" crosses the line and becomes a pathology, and whether it merits a place in the DSM. 

 

https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2019/07/28/medhum-2019-011681.abstract

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666318315290

 

 

[gfweb]

1 hour ago, chromedome said:

As a sort of epilogue to this thread (no wonder I had trouble finding it, it's been a year already!), some academics are questioning when "orthorexia" crosses the line and becomes a pathology, and whether it merits a place in the DSM. 

 

https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2019/07/28/medhum-2019-011681.abstract

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666318315290

 

 

 

 

(didn't seem like a year has passed...)

 

DSM classification is an interesting thing. For mental illness on the lower spectrum of severity, inclusion seems tenuous. For example, someone who is a total jerk, eg the Bagel Boss guy, is just a normal jerk until there are a lot of people who are jerky in the way he is, then it becomes a classifiable disease. A bit of an over-simplification, but not too much.

 

Re weird diets, is it just over-strong belief in the wrong science or a form of mental illness? I'd say mostly the former. The internet enables the unschooled. Dunning-Kruger effect etc.

[chromedome]

Yeah, drawing the line is a difficult call to make (hence the current academic debate).

 

At a certain point a given behavior becomes obsessive and destructive, even if it is normal and acceptable in and of itself (ie, a desire for health). Defining that point is one of those archetypal "the devil is in the details" scenarios.