Gabby Thomas’ obsession with healthy eating is starting to take over her life in Emmerdale and Manpreet thinks she has a condition called orthorexia.
She’s become obsessed with eating only whole foods as well as limiting the medications she takes. She’s now refusing to take antibiotics for a chest infection and is also posting worrying content online that younger kids have seen.
So what is happening to Gabby? What type of eating disorder does she have? And how can Manpreet help?
Gabby’s clean eating has gone too far
After feeling out of control with her life, Gabby has become focused on eating ‘healthily’, so she can control something. She has introduced a new green menu at the Hide. It’s put the business into debt and Laurel is desperate to persuade her they need to serve the customers what they want.
But Gabby doesn’t want to hear it. She is also following a strict diet and trying to influence others around her to do the same. She has been telling them about all the nasty ingredients used in things like pancakes and pizza. Her own son Thomas has been banned from having ice lollies as a result.
This week, Gabby went to the doctors with a terrible cough. Manpreet told her she had a chest infection and needed a course of antibiotics to clear it.
However, Gabby believes the pharmaceutical companies are just out to make money by forcing people to put ‘poison’ in their bodies. She has not been taking the pills. Even coughing up blood hasn’t convinced her to.
Manpreet ran some blood tests and tonight (Friday October 2) she revealed they have shown Gabby is serverely nutrient deficient as she isn’t eating a balanced diet. But Gabby still refused to listen to reason.
Next week she will collapse and will finally agree to get help. But what impact has this had on those around her?
What’s the matter with Gabby? What is orthorexia?
Gabby seems to be struggling with the condition orthorexia nervosa – an eating disorder. But, what is it?
We spoke to Dr Hannah Burrage, Lead GP, at Kry, and she told us: “Orthorexia is best understood as an unhealthy obsession with ‘clean’ or ‘pure’ eating, where the focus isn’t on quantity of food or body size in the way we typically associate with other eating disorders, but on the perceived moral or health quality of what’s being eaten.
“It’s not currently a formal medical diagnosis in its own right, but that doesn’t make it any less real or any less serious for the people going through it. Clinicians increasingly recognise it as a genuine pattern of disordered eating.”
So how do you help? “The most helpful thing isn’t challenging someone’s food choices directly – that tends to make people defensive and dig in further. It’s gently naming the anxiety underneath it: the fear, the rigidity, the way food has stopped being enjoyable and started being a source of stress.
“Encouraging someone to speak to their GP as a first step, without judgement, is usually the most useful thing a friend or family member can do. ”
Why the Gabby storyline in Emmerdale is important
“Storylines like Gabby’s matter because orthorexia so often gets framed publicly as admirable – ‘she’s just really into healthy eating’ – right up until it isn’t,” says Hannad.
“Seeing it play out and lead to a genuine health crisis on screen is a powerful way of showing viewers what’s often invisible in real life: that this can be a serious eating disorder hiding in plain sight, praised rather than picked up on, until something forces the issue.”
Read more: Emmerdale cast shake-up 2026 as exits confirmed and big returns teased – so who’s leaving?
Emmerdale usually airs weeknights on ITV at 8pm, with an early release on ITVX at 7am.
Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think!