unhealthy obsession
- noun
- /ʌnˈhɛlθi əbˈsɛʃən/
- 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.
- He has a friend, Lily, that has an unhealthy obsession with him.
Examples
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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?
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It's turning into an unhealthy obsession for them.
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Let's see you experience things without your unhealthy obsessions, huh?
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Your unhealthy obsession with my well-being is only making me more suspicious of you two.
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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.
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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
A strong harmful need to keep using a drug or activity even when you cannot stop
A very strong, lasting interest that controls your thoughts and actions
Thinking about something a lot and not noticing other things
An unhealthy strong interest in someone or something that harms daily life
Thinking about something too much and doing the same thing again and again
A very strong interest in one thing that makes someone ignore other things
How Obsessive
Surface Forms
Morphology
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'.