The Calorie Restriction Diet: A Healthy Lifestyle, or an Eating Disorder?

by Michael LoPresti

It wasn't until recently that I stumbled upon Julian Dibbell's article from New York magazine about the Calorie Restriction diet (a lifestyle that Dibbell describes as "a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand"). I came away from the article more than a little agitated about this practice and its proponents. In the course of doing some research, I didn't have to stray too far to find Katherine Stevens's Rudd Sound Bites blog entry on this topic from October of last year. In it, Stevens touches on most of the issues that stuck out to me as well. Beneath Stevens's post, in the comments section, was a lengthy, stern, yet exceedingly polite refutation of many of Stevens's points by someone identifying herself as April Smith, one of the "CR" adherents who was profiled in the New York article. Smith took Stevens's post apart point by point, extracting phrases and rebutting them with the precision and detail of one well-heeled in defending her lifestyle. And so it is with some trepidation that I set out now to offer my own reflection on one particular point in the Calorie Restriction philosophy.

Dibbell's description of a CR practitioner who eats exactly 1913 calories per day was the detail of the article that leaped out at me, grabbed hold, and wouldn't let go. That the number was so specific struck me as absurd, and almost comical. That the number was apparently an inflexible standard struck me as unhealthy.

I wondered, How precisely had this individual arrived at that number? Was it an exact calculation of the lowest possible number of calories that would be required to sustain his vital bodily functions at an optimal level? Was it even possible to make such a calculation? Can you accurately calculate the caloric value of food down to a single calorie? The logistics of the whole thing intrigued me. But the question that nagged me was this one: What was psychology behind such a strict adherence to a nutritional standard?

My own (avowedly unscientific) diagnosis was that Calorie Restriction is a medically justifiable eating disorder. People who practice CR seem to display some of the same behaviors as anorexics (the ritualization of meals, the perfectionism), yet have at their disposal a host of scientific evidence to prove that their bodies are as healthy as they could possibly be. What psychological, behavioral, or sociological sacrifices do CR people have to make to attain a physical ideal?

April Smith defends herself from the Stevens's accusation of having a "hyper-obsession with control" by saying that she and others who practice CR are merely trying to slow down their biological aging process. That sounds precisely like an obsession with control to me. In her comment, Smith compares CR people with bakers who are meticulous about measuring the ingredients they put into their baked goods, saying that no one calls a cook pathological when she demands accuracy in her recipes. At this point, the discussion becomes about ideals. Maybe there is an ideal of a cake, a cookie, and even a human body. But is the desire to create a "perfect" baked good (and the thought processes that underly it) equivalent to the desire to attain a "perfect" body? This casual observer would say no.

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Good post, but have you thought about The Calorie Restriction Diet before?