In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan describes the phenomenon of nutritionism as the defining ideology of the Western diet. “In the case of nutritionism,” he writes, “the widely shared but unexamined assumption is that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient. Put another way: Foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts.” The emergence of nutritionism during the past several decades has produced a series of unexpected and deleterious health outcomes in Western society.
Nutritionism obscures the otherwise conspicuous disparity in health value between whole foods and processed foods. As Pollan writes, “When the emphasis is on quantifying the nutrients contained in foods (or, to be precise, the recognized nutrients in foods), any qualitative distinction between whole foods and processed foods is apt to disappear.” Thus, processed foods – with artificially added nutrients comparable to those found in whole foods – may be considered “healthier” by consumers evaluating their options through the lens of nutritionism. This distorted perception serves to benefit nearly all involved parties (food science, food processors and manufacturers, journalists) but the consumer. Pollan states it perfectly, “Scientific reductionism is an undeniably powerful tool, but it can mislead us too, especially when applied to something as complex, on the one side, as a food and on the other a human eater.”
As attitudes around food are increasingly influenced by food science and journalism (the media), and less by the cultural traditions of our ancestors, newly-recognized psychological disorders related to food have emerged as has the incidence in these disorders increased overall. Pollan makes only brief mention of orthorexia in the introduction of In Defense Of Food, thus missing a critical opportunity to illustrate the psychological effects of nutritionism alongside the ideology’s aggregation of physiological health outcomes. The National Eating Disorders Association describes orthorexia – formally known as orthorexia nervosa – as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. Orthorexia presents as an especially militant and extreme version of nutritionism. Sufferers experience a steadily narrowing reductionist approach to foods and nutrients, resulting in crippling anxiety around food choices and ever-increasing self-imposed food restrictions. As an eating disorder, orthorexia is not currently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), as an officially recognized mental disorder; however, its inclusion is certainly imminent.
As the preferred lens through which consumers are encouraged to evaluate and experience food, nutritionism has become a dominant force in Western popular and health culture. The exclusive focus on nutrients, and their place in our misguided quest for perfect health, has corrupted our intuition around food and nutrition. Nutritionism is leading us ever-further from physical and mental wellbeing.
Kratina, K. (2016). Orthorexia Nervosa. Retrieved from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa
Pollan, M. (2008). In Defense Of Food. New York, NY: Penguin.