There were times in our youth when we wished we could be anorexic or bullimic (stupid, we know, but if you were ever a chubby, insecure teenage girl you, too, may have wished these disorders upon yourself) but we always ended up reaching for the Cool Ranch Doritos. In recent years, eating disorder specialists have termed a new disorder that we're a little less guilty about wishing we had: orthorexia, an unhealthy fixation with healthy eating.

While we certainly try to eat healthy most of the time, it's really only so we feel like we're balancing out our two-hamburger-a-week minimum, so this is yet another disorder we're in no danger of developing. But the chubby, insecure teenager inside of us still almost wishes we could have orthorexia—luckily, the adult whose social life revolves around food does not.

Like anorexia, it often involves severe weight loss, but so-called orthorexics are obsessed with food quality, rather than quantity, and strive for personal purity in their eating habits rather than for a thin physique.

The word orthorexia was coined in 1997 by Colorado alternative medicine specialist Steven Bratman. Implicit in the description are traits that resemble obsessive-compulsive disorder, since sufferers devote excessive attention to their own strict rules and often spend hours each day worrying about tomorrow's meals. Such a person may find himself socially isolated because he doesn't indulge in everyday dishes. "If your focus on healthy eating is interfering with your happiness and social life," says Bratman, "you might have a problem."

What's the disorder called when your happiness is dependent on your hamburger intake? 

[Psychology Today: Orthorexia: Too Healthy?] 

[Image of a Shake Shack burger via theeatenpath's flickr. Mmm, Shake Shack.]