Temperaments and orthorexia nervosa: a cross-cultural study between Germany and Lebanon

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the association between affective temperaments and orthorexic eating and whether temperament may explain cross-cultural differences in this behavior while considering the two dimensions of orthorexic eating, healthy (HeOr) and nervosa (OrNe). To accomplish this, 337 and 389 individuals were recruited in Lebanon and Germany, respectively. The brief version of the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego explored depressive, hyperthymic, cyclothymic, anxious and irritable temperaments, and the Teruel Orthorexia scale explored orthorexic eating. HeOr appeared comparable between countries but OrNe was higher in Lebanon. In terms of affective temperaments, the higher the depressive, cyclothymic, irritable, and anxious temperaments, the higher were the levels of OrNe. Only the hyperthymic temperament scale was positively associated with HeOr. Three-step regression analysis indicated only gender as a unique predictor for HeOr. By contrast, gender, depressive, hyperthymic, and anxious temperament as well as the two-way interactions country*depressive temperament and country*hyperthymic temperament were significant predictors of OrNe. The positive association between OrNe and depressive temperament was only found for the German sample while the negative association between hyperthymic temperament and OrNe was somewhat stronger in the Lebanese sample. Overall, a higher healthy interest in diet was linked to the hyperthymic temperament. Findings emphasized the role of temperaments in pathological orthorexic eating in general as well as in explaining cross-cultural differences in these behaviors. The assessment of temperaments could help to fit treatments for eating pathologies to individuals from different cultures, focusing interventions more on these aspects.

Prevalence of Orthorexic Tendencies and Their Correlates Among Lebanese Patients with Cancer

“…In one study, men who met criteria for orthorexia experienced higher orthorexic symptoms than women (Stutts, 2020), although, in Lebanon, females had a higher tendency to display orthorexia than men (Haddad et al, 2019;Hallit, Brytek-Matera, & Obeid, 2021). Other cross-cultural studies did not show any association between ON tendencies and gender (Brytek-Matera et al, 2020;Obeid et al, 2022). Education level has been inconsistently linked to orthorexia, such that one study found that a higher level of education was associated with higher risk of orthorexia (Douma et al, 2021), while two other studies reported that having a university education decreased the risk of displaying orthorexia tendencies (Altun et al, 2022;Bulut and Yigitbas, 2022).…”

Validation of the Arabic version of the 35-item TEMPS-M in a community sample of adults

“…However, to our knowledge, no brief version of the TEMPS is available so far in the Arabic language. This might have resulted in limited research in this field from Arab countries; we could find only a few studies conducted on this topic, mainly in Lebanon [ 34 – 38 ] and Tunisia [ 39 – 42 ]. Hence, the strong need for a psychometrically valid short version for Arabic-speaking populations.…”