Wow, I’ve never heard of orthorexia. I can see how that level of obsession would interfere with daily life. It’s like Monk, but with food instead of germs.
Most people could stand to improve their diet. I know I sure could. But taking the idea of “healthy eating” to the point where you mainly consume raw broccoli and as an adult weigh 68 pounds is not healthy.
When I worked in a daycare center, I had a little girl in my class whose mother was obsessed with healthy food. We had a cafeteria and served lunch to the children, most of which was pretty well-balanced and healthy. Not perfect, but not bologna and processed cheese either. Anyway, this little girl could only have a few items from the menu. Everything else she ate was brought from home, and it was very hard to get her to eat it. Plain yogurt with wheat germ, raw veggies and fruits, no meats, no carbs. We could only give her one serving of low fat milk per meal, no juice. The little girl was two years old. When another child had a birthday, we had to have a teacher take her out of the room so she wouldn’t get upset at seeing the other kids eat cake. Once a parent baked whole wheat blueberry muffins so this little girl could participate, but her mother wouldn’t let her have one. In the summer, every Friday afternoon we’d take the kids outside for ice cream from the ice cream truck. Of course, this little girl wasn’t allowed to have anything. The mother was extremely thin, and passing her food issues on to her child. I’m all about giving kids healthy food, but this mom would spend ten or fifteen minutes each day talking to us about what her kid ate. “I think she has too many carbs in her diet. She had two pieces of bread yesterday, and I need to cut back on her carbs. Please don’t give her seconds of milk. We’re watching our fat.” I so wanted to sneak that poor kid a chocolate donut with some whole milk.
You can take any healthy activity and, by pushing it to extremes, make it unhealthy.