title: Orthorexia nervosa: Assessment and correlates with gender, BMI, and personality.
abstract: This study investigated whether orthorexia nervosa (ON; characterized by an obsessive fixation on eating healthy) may be predicted from the demographics variables of gender and BMI, and from the personality variables of self-esteem, narcissism, and perfectionism. Participants were 459 college students, who completed several online questionnaires that assessed these variables. A principal components analysis confirmed that the Eating Habits Questionnaire (Gleaves, Graham, & Ambwani, 2013) assesses three internally-consistent ON components: healthy eating behaviors, problems resulting from those behaviors, and positive feelings associated with those behaviors. A MANOVA and its tests of between subjects effects then revealed significant interactions between gender and BMI, such that for men but not women, a higher BMI was associated with greater symptomatology for all ON components. Partial correlation analyses, after controlling for gender and BMI, revealed that both narcissism and perfectionism were positively correlated with all aspects of ON symptomatology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA. Electronic address: oberle@txstate.edu.
authors.forename: Crystal D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Oberle
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Razieh O
authors.initials: RO
authors.lastname: Samaghabadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Hughes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D058070:Asymptomatic Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D000072001:Diet, Healthy / Q000523:psychology; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009289:Narcissism; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D009770:Obsessive Behavior / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D050177:Overweight / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology; D000072639:Perfectionism; D015995:Prevalence; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012737:Sex Factors; D013781:Texas / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: BMI; Gender; Narcissism; Orthorexia nervosa; Perfectionism; Self-esteem