A healthy diet is one of the key elements of a healthy life. Some people, however, may take it to an extreme, causing their mind and body more harm than good.

This piece from the current issue of Today’s Dietician examines the topic of orthorexia, an unhealthy of obsession with eating healthfully. While not a recognized eating disorder (yet), somebody suffering from orthorexia may suffer from malnutrition and psychological torment just as someone with anorexia might, though a lot of the “diet” food considered safe by anorexics is off-limits to someone with orthorexia, as the obsessive part of orthorexia is less about thinness than about being “healthy.”

I can see, especially in the field I am going into, how easy it can be for someone to slip into this kind of behavior. When you’re inundated with information about food and food safety all day, it can be a challenge to try to fit that knowledge into your daily life without going overboard.

We really can’t expect ourselves to eat a perfectly pure diet all the time. It’s about finding a healthy balance we can live with. That’s part of why I named my blog “Keeping it Real”—we’re real people living real lives and we need real food.

One of the things I want to do as a dietician is work with people to help them understand how easy it is to take care of themselves once they manage to cut through the fog and tune out the noise of all the mixed messages out there.