Tendency to orthorexia nervosa among male subjects in a Hungarian sample

Márta VargaDukay-Szabó Szilvia, Papp Ildikó, Túry Ferenc

Semmelweis University Institute of Behavioural Sciences

Paper read at the Jubilee Congress on Eating Disorders 2010, The 18th

International Conference, October 21-23, 2010, Alpbach, Tyrol, Austria

Being strong

Being good-lookingBeing muscular

Being successful

Being healthy

Ideals of men Being thin

Being powerful Being good at work andbeing hard-working at home

Being sporty

Obesogenic environment

• Beauty ideals (thinness, healthiness)

• Stigmatisation of fatness• Consumer society: increasing

consumption and dietarybehaviour in the same time

+high prevalence of obesity

Eating and bodyimagerelated disorders among men

•AN, BN: 0.17-0.2%

•Muscle dismorphia

•Eating disorder bodybuilder type

•Obesity

Orthorexia nervosa

•Recently appeared eating disorder(Bratman, 1997)

•Fixation on healthy food

•Focus: quality of food

•Pathological obsession with biologically pure food

•Strict dietary restrictions

Background factors

•Serious physical or mental disorder•Hypochondric fears from diseases (health anxiety)•Mortal fear (thanatophobia) •Deficits of self-evaluation, self hate•Sense of guilt•Lack of control•Social insecurity•Insecurity of identity

To refuse tasty food = refusing joy and delight•Background: lack of oral safety feeling in the early childhood

Consequences

•Social izolation•Health-related problems•Low body weight•Lack of vitamins•Obesity

Aim of the study

The „Nutrition and healthy eating” study investigates the tendency to developorthorexia nervosa, eating disturbances andhabits and aims to determine the background factors of them in a Hungarian sample. One part of this study compares data of healthcare professionals with non-healthcare professionals.

Present pilot study demonstrates the results of the male subjects.

Sample

• 68 males • Age: M=29.58 s=10.2• BMI: M=24.94 s=3.91

29.58

10.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

M s

age

24.94

3.910

5

10

15

20

25

M s

BMI

Method

•Sociodemographic data

•Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI)(Garner et al, 1984)

•ORTO-15 (ON scale) (Donini et al, 2005)

Results: ON tendency

•The mean score of ORTO-15 was 37.91 (s=4.47) which falls into the range of ON tendency by the cut-off point 40 (p<0.01).

•No difference by profession

37.91

4.470

10

20

30

40

M s

ORTO-15

Results: ON and perfectionism

There was a significant positive correlation between the scores of ON and scores of perfectionism subscale of

the EDI (r=0.364, p<0.01).

Results: ON no association with other ED related problems

There were no other significant associations between the ON scores and other subscales of EDI. (drive for thinness, bulimic tendencies, body dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness,interpersonal distrust, interceptive awareness, maturity fears)

No males have tendency to bulimia or anorexia nervosa according to the EDI.

Conclusions

Males in the sample:• had BMI scores in the normal range! •showed tendency to have ON features•the ON features correlate with perfectionism

Men are affected by eating and body relatedproblems more and more

The ideal of being healthy is very intensive amongmales

Perfectionism can be a background factor todevelop ON

Limitation

•Small sample size

•Motivation of filling in a questionnaire inthis topic

Really healthy

nutrition??

Thank youfor your attention!

vmarta104@yahoo.com