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unhealthy obsession

unhealthy obsession

3 6.1
A very strong focus on someone or something that harms your life
  • noun
  • /ʌnˈhɛlθi əbˈsɛʃən/
translation icon : obsesión poco saludable
  • His unhealthy obsession with video games has started to affect his school performance.

He has a friend, Lily, that has an unhealthy obsession with him.

Examples

  • I have noticed a growing trend around the world: an unhealthy obsession with women's bodies.

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  • Found no great pit of vipers as PZ likes to imply, but a bunch of fairly ordinary people with what seems to me to be an unhealthy obsession with all things FtBs.

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  • Okay, you know that you have an unhealthy obsession - with this stuff, right?

  • It's turning into an unhealthy obsession for them.

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  • Let's see you experience things without your unhealthy obsessions, huh?

  • Your unhealthy obsession with my well-being is only making me more suspicious of you two.

  • But critics question whether these behaviors constitute a real addiction or are just an unhealthy obsession.

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  • But ultimately, I think it would heal the unhealthy obsession that my generation has with Facebook and help us measure our self-worth by other factors.

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  • She's very sweet and terribly embarrassed because she's been trapped in this unhealthy obsession with Ryan and wants to talk it over.

  • It all started with an unhealthy obsession with a demo back in 1994, UFO: Enemy Unknown—or X-COM: UFO Defense in the US.

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Synonyms

addiction
vsunhealthy obsession
289 4.1

A strong harmful need to keep using a drug or activity even when you cannot stop

describes an excessive harmful mental focus rather than a physical compulsion to use
obsession
vsunhealthy obsession
262 5.1

A very strong, lasting interest that controls your thoughts and actions

is consistently excessive and damaging rather than only sometimes harmful
preoccupation
vsunhealthy obsession
26 5.6

Thinking about something a lot and not noticing other things

is specifically an excessive harmful focus rather than neutral absorption
fixation
vsunhealthy obsession
24 7.5

An unhealthy strong interest in someone or something that harms daily life

stresses being excessive and damaging rather than only narrowing attention
obsessiveness
vsunhealthy obsession
3 7.0

Thinking about something too much and doing the same thing again and again

describes a harmful excessive focus rather than a general personal trait
monomania
vsunhealthy obsession
  • Archaic
1 9.9

A very strong interest in one thing that makes someone ignore other things

covers excessive harmful focus that can target one or many things

How Obsessive

unhealthy obsession
3 6.1
preoccupation
26 5.6
to interest
206 1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

unhealthy + obsession

The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun combination where 'unhealthy' (harmful/excessive) modifies 'obsession' (intense fixation), so the harmful/excessive sense is directly derivable from the parts. This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows basic English modification rules, making it immediately understandable to learners who know both words.

Etymology

Unhealthy obsession puts together unhealthy and obsession. Imagine a thought you cannot stop thinking about, growing like a small sickness in your mind and hurting your life. That's why it means 'an excessive and harmful fixation'.