Orthorexia nervosa and self-attitudinal aspects of body image in female and male university students

Journal of Eating Disorders

Phillipa Hay¹  Eleonora Poggiogalle³  Magdalena Krupa²  Lorenzo Maria Donini³  Anna Brytek-Matera⁴ 

[1] Centre for Health Research, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney and School of Medicine James Cook University, Townsville, Australia;Polish National Center for Eating Disorders, Wroclaw, Poland;Experimental Medicine Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy;Campus in Katowice, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Katowice, Poland

关键词: Healthy food;    Body image;    Orthorexia nervosa;   

Others  :  1149708
DOI  :  10.1186/s40337-015-0038-2

 received in 2014-05-07, accepted in 2015-01-22,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

The present study was designed to investigate orthorexia nervosa, or the phenomenon of being preoccupied with consuming healthy food. Specific aims were to explore relationships between orthorexia features and attitudes towards body image, fitness and health in normal weight female and male university students with high levels of healthy food preoccupation, i.e. orthorexia nervosa.

Methods

Participants were 327 female (N = 283) and male (N = 44) students aged 18 to 25 years. All participants completed the Polish adaptation of the 15-item questionnaire assessing orthorexia eating behaviours (the ORTHO-15) and the Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (the MBSRQ). Relationships between scores on the ORTHO-15 and MBSRQ were explored in the 213 students who had high levels of preoccupation with a healthy food intake (68.55% women and 43.18% men, respectively).

Results

There were no statistically significant differences in the levels of orthorexia behaviours between females and males. In female students with orthorexia nervosa, preoccupation with consuming healthy food was significantly correlated with the MBSRQ subscale scores for overweight preoccupation, appearance orientation, fitness orientation, health orientation, body areas satisfaction and appearance evaluation. Conversely, in male students with orthorexia nervosa there were no correlations between orthorexic behaviours and the MBSRQ subscales.

In female students with orthorexia nervosa multivariable linear regression analysis found high body areas (parts) satisfaction, low fitness orientation, low overweight preoccupation and low appearance orientation were independent predictors of greater fixation on eating healthy food. In male students, we found that aspects of body image were not associated with preoccupation with healthy eating.

Conclusion

A strong preoccupation with healthy and proper food was not associated with an unhealthy body-self relationship among Polish female student with orthorexia nervosa.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Brytek-Matera et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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