Clean eating trend can be dangerous for young people, experts warn

One nutritionist said she had been contacted by a girl as young as 12 and people had got in touch on social media saying they wanted to be healthier, giving details of their existing diets.

Rhiannon Lambert, a registered associate nutritionist in Harley Street, London, has encountered people who obsess over where food comes from and some clients who will not drink water from a tap, because they normally stick to a brand of bottled water.

"They develop particular habits, or won't eat food when walking, because they think that food can only be processed when they're sitting down," she said. "All this interferes with general life and becomes an obsession."

The extreme form of this is a psychological condition known as orthorexia nervosa, the Californian doctor Steven Bratman has said. Experts have described it as a "fixation with righteous eating".

Clean eating is promoted by some food bloggers, who are increasingly felt by a number of medical experts to be having a negative impact on certain vulnerable young people.

"Young people lose sleep over this and cannot afford the lifestyle needed to maintain it," Lambert said. "Health bloggers can be unqualified and offer dangerous advice. Not all of them want to impose their lifestyle on others, but lots of them do and they often give advice on clean eating with no scientific backing.

"The books come along, the products come along and these people are now role models whose every word will inspire impressionable young people. I have clients who think they have to be vegan to be successful."

There are no official figures for the number of children and young people following a clean eating regime, because orthorexia is not recognised as a clinical diagnosis. But psychologists and nutritionists have reported a recent surge in the phenomenon among younger clients, especially girls, and believe that it is gaining in popularity.

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