Food obsessed? Evolutionary explanations for orthorexia nervosa addressed.
Summary
This review formulates four potential evolutionary theories regarding the emergence of orthorexia nervosa, including: 1) the healthelogical adaption hypothesis, positing ON as a strategy to safeguard health against socioecological challenges, 2) the pathogen avoidance hypothesis, whereby ON represents a method for omnivorous, social species to avoid pathogens and toxins in diverse diets, 3) the group conformism and social status hypothesis, where ON facilitates social prestige and group integration, and 4) the healthy mate signalling hypothesis, where ON is a means to boost reproductive fitness by appearing attractive to potential mates. Together, these theories explore the potential adaptive aspects of healthy eating, which when taken to extremes in at-risk individuals, result in ON.