美国国家公共电台 NPR When Efforts To Eat 'Clean' Become An Unhealthy Obsession

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

You know the common advice when it comes to your diet. Try for moderation, people say. You don't want too much of anything. It turns out that advice applies even to the way you think about your diet. An extreme focus on eating only the right foods can risk your mental and physical health. April Fulton explains.

APRIL FULTON, BYLINE¹: Alex Everakes is a 25-year-old public relations executive from Chicago. He knows about clean eating. For a time, he was obsessed² with the purity of everything he put in his mouth.

ALEX EVERAKES: Spinach³, chicken, egg whites.

FULTON: At one point, he only ate 10 foods.

EVERAKES: Asparagus, salmon⁴, unsweetened almond milk.

FULTON: He didn't always eat this way. As a kid, Everakes struggled with being overweight. In his teens and 20s, he tried to diet and gained and lost and regained⁵ about a hundred pounds. When he moved to Los Angeles, he took his diet to a new level.

EVERAKES: I even picked my vegetables so that I wouldn't be bloated. That's literally⁶ how obsessed I got.

FULTON: He lost a lot of weight, posted pictures online and got tons of positive reinforcement. People loved his six-pack abs. But in reality, he was starving, tired and lonely. Alex was afraid of some foods. He worked at home to avoid office parties. He didn't make friends because he didn't want to eat with people or explain his diet.

EVERAKES: My life, literally, was modeled to put myself away from distraction⁷ of my fitness.

FULTON: Alex was struggling with something called orthorexia nervosa. Dr. Steven Bratman first coined the term in 1997. Some of his patients would ask, what foods should I cut out of my diet to be healthy?

STEVEN BRATMAN: People would think they should cut out all dairy, they should cut out all lentils, all wheat. And it dawned on me gradually that, many of these patients, their primary problem was that they were far too strict with themselves.

FULTON: So Bratman made up a name, orthorexia, borrowing ortho from the Greek word meaning right, and orexia, meaning appetite.

BRATMAN: From then on, whenever a patient would ask me what food to cut out, I would say, we need to work on your orthorexia. This would often make them laugh and let them loosen up, and sometimes it helped people move from extremism to moderation.

FULTON: Bratman had no idea the concept of clean eating would explode. Where dieters once gobbled down sugar-free gelatin, now they might seek out organic kale and wild salmon. The rise of celebrity⁸ diet gurus and glamorous⁹ food photos on social media reinforce the idea that eating only certain foods and avoiding others is a virtue¹⁰. Sondra Kronberg has seen a lot of diet trends over the last 40 years. She's the founder¹¹ of the Eating Disorder¹² Treatment Collaborative in New York.

SONDRA KRONBERG: Orthorexia is a reflection on the cultural perspective on eating cleanly, avoiding toxins¹³, including foods that might have some superpower.

FULTON: Now, Kronberg applauds eating healthfully. The problem comes, she says, when people are so focused on their diet that they miss out on life. That's when you should start to worry about an eating disorder.

KRONBERG: In the case of orthorexia, it centers around eating cleanly and purely¹⁴, where the other eating disorders¹⁵ center around size and weight and a drive for thinness.

FULTON: Sometimes these problems overlap¹⁶, she says, and some people who eat only clean foods don't eat enough and can actually miss out on critical nutrients¹⁷. While people are showing up in clinics with these problems, scientists don't agree on exactly what orthorexia is. There are only about 150 studies on it, while the well-known eating disorders have tens of thousands. But it is treatable. Dr. Steven Bratman.

BRATMAN: Most eating disorders are treated in pretty much the same way. You have to work with people's behaviors. You have to counsel them on their health and their nutrition. And you have to look for underlying¹⁸ anxiety, obsessive-compulsive issues, control issues.

FULTON: Alex Everakes has been in treatment for two years. While he's still significantly underweight, he says he's happier and learning to see his diet a little differently. For Alex, taking control of his orthorexia is...

EVERAKES: Knowing that your world isn't going to come crashing down if you have, like, a piece of pizza.

FULTON: He's managed this by taking baby steps.

EVERAKES: What I did is I had a piece of cauliflower pizza first.

FULTON: He eats more freely on the weekends now and tries to add a new food every few days. If you think you or someone you know has orthorexia or any eating disorder, get professional help and talk to your friends, Alex says, because it's very hard to change these patterns on your own. For NPR News, I'm April Fulton.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

3 spinach   

n.菠菜

参考例句：

• Eating spinach is supposed to make you strong.据说吃菠菜能使人强壮。
• You should eat such vegetables as carrot,celery and spinach.你应该吃胡萝卜、芹菜和菠菜这类的蔬菜。

4 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

5 regained   

复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地

参考例句：

• The majority of the people in the world have regained their liberty. 世界上大多数人已重获自由。
• She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise. 她犹豫片刻，但很快恢复了镇静。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

8 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

9 glamorous   

adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的

参考例句：

• The south coast is less glamorous but full of clean and attractive hotels.南海岸魅力稍逊，但却有很多干净漂亮的宾馆。
• It is hard work and not a glamorous job as portrayed by the media.这是份苦差，并非像媒体描绘的那般令人向往。

10 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

11 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

12 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

13 toxins   

n.毒素( toxin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The seas have been used as a receptacle for a range of industrial toxins. 海洋成了各种有毒工业废料的大容器。
• Most toxins are naturally excreted from the body. 大部分毒素被自然排出体外。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

15 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 overlap   

v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠

参考例句：

• The overlap between the jacket and the trousers is not good.夹克和裤子重叠的部分不好看。
• Tiles overlap each other.屋瓦相互叠盖。

17 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。