Blog Post 4: Developing a Healthy Obsession

Some people assume that being obsessed with healthy food and healthy living is already considered a healthy obsession. This disorder is known as Orthorexia nervosa or simply Orthorexia.  In an article by August McLaughlin entitled “Healthfood Passion or Dangerous Obsession?” he noted this:

“Registered dietitian Mary Barbour described orthorexia as an "eating disorder much like anorexia nervosa, except instead of obsessing about being thin, [those with the condition] are fixated on eating foods that make themselves feel pure, healthy and natural." 

Although the word “healthy” is in obsession for healthy foods, this doesn’t make it a healthy obsession. You can’t consider it healthy if the outcome will be not. A healthy obsession is an obsession which makes your life better and helps you in a good way.

The word obsession may immediately give you a bad connotation. But in an article by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D. entitled What Makes Your Obsession Healthy or Unhealthy Is Your Personality, an obsession can be considered healthy. He said that: “nobody who has ever achieved anything impressive or made an outstanding contribution to anything, has managed to do so without a certain level of obsessiveness.”

He substantiated his point and provided reasons and examples in his article. Being obsessed with something needs development of intra- and inter-personal skills. This is where personality plays an important role. There are three traits that are particularly necessary to help you manage yourself and others. First is Openness to experience, this trait characterizes people who are flexible and open-minded, and therefore open to change. Next, Emotional Stability, be self-critical, and also be motivated by guilt or fear of failure. All these aspects of personality may make you less confident, but if you are too confident you will be less likely to think that you need to change. And the third and final trait is Agreeableness or Inter-personal Sensitivity. This trait is important because it enables you to get feedback from others and take others' views into account. It is the secret path to empathy and having a warm connection with other people. So in order to develop a healthy obsession, we must be able first to possess these traits that would qualify us in developing a healthy obsession.

I would like to state an example of someone who developed his own healthy obsession.  Mishka Shubaly, from being "irreverent young drunk" to ultra-runner.  He first started by running five miles, then increasing it to 10 then 50. His author was the one who suggested to write a book about his great change. He thought that nobody would want to hear his story that’s why he was surprised when his book, "The Long Run" published on Amazon's Kindle Singles list in 2011, it hit No. 1, bumping Stephen King out of the top spot. Experts commend him because they know he’s not the only one using exercise to overcome addiction.

It turns out that being obsessed can be good in some sort of way, but remember, in order to foster a healthy obsession, we must possess the three traits Tomas Chamorro-Premusic had enumerated in his article. Therefore, we may be able to manage ourselves and others better.