Prevalence of Orthorexia Nervosa Tendency in Non-obese Population: A Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of eating disorders has increased in the modern population. This study aimed to describe the presence of orthorexia nervosa (ON) tendency in non-obese population.
METHODS: Individuals over the age of 18 and with a body mass index below 25 kg/m2 who applied to the family medicine outpatient clinics of a tertiary hospital between April 2017 and October 2017 were included. The ORTO-11 scale was applied individuals to assess ON tendency
RESULTS: A total of 801 participants were included in this study, the mean age was 31.5±10.9 years, and 505 (63.0%) of the participants had an ON tendency. Three hundred two (59.8%) of the participants with ON tendency were female. The frequency of marriage and vitamin supplementation use in participants with ON tendency were 336 (66.5%) and 76 (15.0%), respectively. The presence of ON tendency was significantly different according to be married, female, and vitamin supplementation use (p=0.008, p=0.012 and p=0.007, respectively). The mean ORTO-11 score was 25.8±4.5 in the 18-30 age group, 24.6±4.4 in the 31-50 age group, and 22.6±4.4 in the over 50 age group (p<0.001). A negative correlation was found between ORTO-11 score and age (r=-0.200 and p<0.001).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: ON tendency in the non-obese population was found to be at 63%, which is a high value according to the ORTO-11 scale. In our study, an increase in the prevalence of ON tendency was observed in individuals over 50 years of age, those using vitamin supplements, married people and women.