IS FAULTLESS EATING THE WAY TO HEALTH

The mind and body do impact each other. The food people eat influences their nature and vice versa. The Chhāndogya Upaniṣhad explains that the coarsest part of the food we eat passes out as feces; the subtler part becomes flesh; and the subtlest part becomes the mind (6.5.1).

It also states:

āhāra śhuddhau sattva śhuddhiḥ (7.26.2)

(“By eating pure food, the mind becomes pure.”)

However, excess of all things, even of faith can be detrimental to our well-being. Although faith opens the mind to the possibility of things that cannot be immediately experienced or understood, the Buddha specifically recommended maintaining a balance even between faith and wisdom, and between effort and concentration.

Dr. Verity B. Pratt PhD from York St. John University writes about clean eating influencer Alice Liveing (‘Clean Eating Alice’). Alice recently opened up to her about how becoming a “fitfluencer” on Instagram led to serious ill-health for her. Alice spoke about how her struggles with perfect eating, accompanied by extreme workouts, took a toll on her physical health. This included a loss of her menstrual cycle, poor sleep, low mood and energy levels, and poor cognitive functioning.

Alice's pursuit of extreme health in exchange for Instagram popularity underscores the dangers of conflating wellness with perfection. When the focus shifts from achieving a healthy lifestyle to attaining an idealized, flawless physique and diet, it can spiral into an obsessive and harmful cycle.

Clean eating, a dietary trend emphasizing whole, unprocessed foods, encompasses popular regimens like paleo, Atkins, and raw food diets. While initially focused on health, this approach can escalate into orthorexia, an obsessive preoccupation with healthy eating. Characterized by rigid food rules, fear of contamination, and a relentless pursuit of purity, orthorexia can significantly impair quality of life. Unlike anorexia nervosa, individuals with orthorexia often maintain a normal weight but experience severe anxiety and distress over dietary choices. This condition is increasingly recognized as a mental health concern, with research exploring its causes, symptoms, and effective treatment strategies.

Studies have shown that social media can be a breeding ground for orthorexia. Constant exposure to idealized body images, heavily filtered food photos, and nutrition advice from unqualified influencers can create unrealistic expectations about health and diet. This can lead to a preoccupation with food purity, calorie counting, and restrictive eating habits. Quoting studies, a Scispace article highlights that “weight loss trends on social media present both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, social media can enhance weight loss interventions by providing social support, motivation, and access to health information, particularly for hard-to-reach populations like low-socioeconomic status (SES) individuals, who have shown high engagement and positive outcomes in social media-based interventions. Additionally, platforms like Reddit reveal that users actively seek personalized weight loss guidance, indicating a demand for tailored interventions. Conversely, the quality of weight loss information on platforms like TikTok is concerning. A study found that popular weight loss procedure videos often have lower quality content, with a significant proportion created by non-physicians, which may mislead viewers. Furthermore, the overwhelming volume of posts during specific times, such as holidays, can lead to information overload, complicating users' ability to discern credible advice. Thus, while social media can facilitate weight loss efforts, it also poses risks related to misinformation and varying content quality.”

Orthorexia can lead to an exaggerated fear of disease from breaking dietary behaviours that is accompanied by emotional reactions such as fear and shame, and escalating dietary restrictions from disordered eating behaviours to eating pathology. It can also impair functioning in social, academic, and work domains. Physical effects of orthorexia, for example, include metabolic acidosis, severe weight loss, and malnutrition. Emotional effects include basing self-worth and body image on adhering to healthy eating. One recent estimate showed this condition to be as high as 55% in exercising populations.

Who is at risk?

Perfectionism is a personality trait that is characterised by irrational standards and harsh self-criticism. These aspects can be considered as two overarching dimensions — perfectionistic strivings and concerns. Perfectionistic strivings include a personal commitment to being perfect and perfectionistic concerns include concerns and fears about being imperfect.

There is research that links perfectionism to orthorexia. 13 studies, with nearly 5,000 participants from education, sport, exercise, and general domains have found that social pressures as well as pressures from social media provide us with ‘perfect’ images of our bodies. Both perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns were positively associated with orthorexia. It was, perfectionistic strivings, that emerged as the most important of the two aspects of perfectionism.

Sydney E. Martin and others have evaluated the role of diet in the gut flora. They find that the gut microbiome may be both helpful and harmful, and not only is it affected by diet, it has also been shown to affect mental health including personality, mood, anxiety and depression. Further changing diet has been shown to alter the gut microbiome within 24 hours.

The intricate relationship between the gut microbiome and human health begins at birth. Our earliest microbial inhabitants originate from the placenta, amniotic fluid, meconium, and vaginal canal, establishing a foundational ecosystem for immune development. Breastfeeding significantly influences this process by enriching the infant gut with Bifidobacterium, a beneficial bacteria that bolsters immunity. This bacterium stimulates the production of immunoglobulin A (IgA), a crucial antibody that defends against pathogens, while concurrently reducing levels of inflammatory cytokine IL-6. Importantly, the gut's health is intimately connected to the optimal functioning of the central nervous system, emphasizing the microbiome's far-reaching impact on overall well-being.

With so many Gen-Z and Millennials relying on social media for lifestyle and nutritional advice, and the ceaseless fixation with fad diets, researchers expect orthorexia to increase. The cure does may not lie in banning social media, rather in not accepting the influencer based advice aimed more at garnering ‘likes’ and advice bereft of adequate scientific backing.

The composition and amount of nutritional intake influences mood and happiness. Consumption of protein slows absorption of carbohydrates and increases the release of dopamine and norepinephrine, which has direct effects on mood. Similarly, eating carbohydrates increases serotonin, which also has direct effects on mood. In addition, the chemical acetylcholine is more present in wheat germ and eggs and is directly involves in neurotransmission and has been associated with learning, memory and mood. Omega-3 fatty acids affect mood and behavior, and low blood levels are associated with depression and pessimism. A pilot study aimed to understand the association of gut microbiome diversity and proportional enterotype representation with dietary nutrient composition and with measures of mood and happiness. It found that that the diversity of organisms in the gut microbiome and the distribution of each major microbiome organism enterotype will associate with diet composition and with measures of mood and happiness. Therefore, a well balanced gut that can handle an occasional party may be more beneficial for us. Balance in life is the essence.

The Bhagavad Gita also emphasises balance and peace. It says

“As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water,

even one of the roaming world of the senses

on which the mind focuses can carry away a man’s intellect.”