Food addiction, orthorexia, and food-related stress among dietetics students

Abstract

Purpose Health sciences, and in particular Nutrition and Dietetics students, have been shown to exhibit an increased prevalence of disordered eating. The aim of the present cross-sectional study was to evaluate other specified feeding and eating disorders (OSFEDs), including stress-related eating, food addiction, and orthorexia, in relation to the dietary intake, among nutrition/dietetics students. Methods A total of 176 undergraduate students from a Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, in Greece, participated in the study. Dietary intake was recorded, and the prevalence of Eating and Appraisal Due to Emotion and Stress (EADES), food addiction (with the modified Yale Food Addition scale mYFAS), and orthorexia were assessed. Chi-square and t tests were performed between sexes, orthorexic and non-orthorexic students, as well as between food-addicted and non-addicted participants. Multiple linear regression analysis assessed relationships between energy intake, BMI or waist circumference, and the food-related psychometric scales. Results Among participating students, 4.5% had food addiction and 68.2% demonstrated orthorexia. No differences were observed between men and women, concerning the prevalence of food addiction and orthorexia, the sum of mYFAS symptoms, or individual EADES factors. Orthorexic students exhibited increased BMI, reduced energy, and saturated fat intake. In addition, orthorexic men consumed more vegetables. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that orthorexic behavior was associated with increased BMI, waist circumference and energy intake. Lower BMI was associated with increasing ability to cope with emotion-and-stress-related eating and increasing appraisal of ability and resources to cope with emotions and stress. Emotion-and-stress-related eating was negatively associated with BMI. Appraisal of ability and resources to cope with emotions and stress was associated with the energy intake. Finally, age was positively correlated with the appraisal of outside stressors/influences, indicating increased ability to cope with outside stressors among older students. ConclusionsThe study shows that despite the suggested interventions, the problem of OSFEDs among nutrition and dietetics students is still valid. Regular screening, counseling, and education is needed to reduce its prevalence. Level of evidence Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

Orthorexic Tendency in Polish Students: Exploring Association with Dietary Patterns, Body Satisfaction and Weight

“…Previous research indicate that the occurrence of ON is more common among students of medicine [10], exercise science [52], dietetics [53] and majors related to nutrition [9]. Our results also confirm these observations in relation to health-related majors.…”

Shedding light upon various tools to assess orthorexia nervosa: a critical literature review with a systematic search

“…of adaptationsNo. of studies that used the toolMain criticismsBOTBratman and Knight2000USAObsession over healthy eating, which seems to be acquiring the characteristics of an ED27Lack of validation [12–14]ORTO-15Donini et al2004, 2005ItalyEating behavior disorder, characterized by a combination of eating, behavioral, and obsessive-phobic personality traits1032Overestimation of ON prevalence [9, 15–18]Weak psychometric properties [9, 15, 19, 20]EHQGleaves, Ambwani and Graham2013USAOverwhelming preoccupation on eating healthfully–5Lack of criterion-related validity [21]DOSBarthels, Meyer, and Pietrowsky2015GermanyA possibly pathological fixation on a healthy diet15Inability to differentiate between anorexic and orthorexic patients [22]BOSBauer et al2018SpainPathological fixation on healthy food intake–––TOSBarrada and Roncero2018SpainAn extreme or excessive preoccupation with eating food believed to be healthy–––…”

“…Despite the lack of validation, the original BOT was used by four studies [12, 14, 26, 27]; the Swedish version of the BOT was used by one study [13]; and the ORTHO-10 by two studies [24, 28]. The studies were aimed at exploring risk factors for ON and exploring associations between ON and other phenomena.…”

How Does Orthorexia Nervosa Assessment Tools Can Differ – Comparison of Two Questionnaires: BOT and ORTO-15

“…In the case of the tests used for this study, they were the target of various criticisms. Several research studies (Bundros et al, 2016;Grammatikopoulou et al, 2018) suggest that as far as Bratman test is concerned, the greatest problem is lack of its validation -there is no international position that would establish BOT as a diagnostic tool. ORTO-15, on the other hand, was assessed as a too low specificity test, indicating too many cases of orthorexia in comparison with other tests (Cliford & Blyth, 2019;Dunn et al, 2017;Gramaglia et al, 2017;Missbach et al, 2017).…”