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People behind unhealthy obsession to healthy food: the personality profile of tendency to orthorexia nervosa

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Our aim was to measure the personality profile of people with high orthorexic tendency using an assessment method which is acknowledged in the research of the classical eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods

In our research, 739 participants completed a self-administered, online questionnaire consisting of two measures: Temperament and Character Inventory-56 (TCI-56) and Ortho-11-Hu.

Results

The orthorexia nervosa (ON) grouping variable has a significant effect on three factors of TCI: MANOVA revealed higher harm avoidance (F (2, 736) = 19.01, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.05), lower self-directedness (F (2, 736) = 22.55, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.06), and higher transcendence (F (2, 736) = 3.05, p = 0.048, η2 = 0.01) in the higher ON group, compared to the lower ON group, regardless of the effect of the risk groups.

Conclusions

According to earlier studies, high harm avoidance and low self-directedness are relevant factors of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and OCD, but now it also seems to be an important parameter of orthorexia. Nevertheless, higher transcendence may be a unique feature, which suggests that orthorexia seems to be an independent phenomenon.

Level of evidence

V, descriptive cross-sectional study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Personality and Health Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella u. 46, Budapest, 1064, Hungary

    Márton Kiss-Leizer & Adrien Rigó

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  1. Márton Kiss-Leizer
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  2. Adrien Rigó
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Correspondence to Adrien Rigó.

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The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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This article is part of the topical collection on personality and eating and weight disorders.

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Kiss-Leizer, M., Rigó, A. People behind unhealthy obsession to healthy food: the personality profile of tendency to orthorexia nervosa. Eat Weight Disord 24, 29–35 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-018-0527-9

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