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The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health

Orthorexia nervosa (OrNe) describes a behavior where eating overly healthy develops into an obsession leading to significant impairment and stress. Initial studies support a bi-dimensional structure of orthorexic eating with one dimension healthy orthorexia (HeOr, interest in healthy eating), which...

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Autor principal: Strahler, Jana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7761061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33260760
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12123662
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author Strahler, Jana
author_facet Strahler, Jana
author_sort Strahler, Jana
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description Orthorexia nervosa (OrNe) describes a behavior where eating overly healthy develops into an obsession leading to significant impairment and stress. Initial studies support a bi-dimensional structure of orthorexic eating with one dimension healthy orthorexia (HeOr, interest in healthy eating), which can be distinguished from the dimension OrNe. The present study pursued the goals to examine the negative consequences of OrNe on mental health, whether HeOr buffers these effects, and the role of gender. Data from two cross-sectional online surveys were combined (study 1 n = 385, 310 women; study 2 n = 398, 265 women; mean age: 28.9 ± 12.0 year) both generating data on psychological wellbeing, life satisfaction, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in relation to OrNe and HeOr (Teruel Orthorexia Scale). By means of correlation and moderation analyses, OrNe was shown to be associated with poorer mental health, especially in the female sample. In terms of HeOr, clear gender differences appeared. There were no meaningful correlations in women. In men, however, HeOr correlated with better mental health. Further, the link between OrNe and poorer mental health was mitigated when there were high HeOr levels. Present findings support the hypotheses that OrNe is associated with pathological consequences and that HeOr may act as a buffer for these consequences. Gender differences in the clinical manifestation of orthorexic eating confirm previous knowledge and have important implications for targeted prevention and treatment strategies.
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spelling pubmed-77610612020-12-26 The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health Strahler, Jana Nutrients Article Orthorexia nervosa (OrNe) describes a behavior where eating overly healthy develops into an obsession leading to significant impairment and stress. Initial studies support a bi-dimensional structure of orthorexic eating with one dimension healthy orthorexia (HeOr, interest in healthy eating), which can be distinguished from the dimension OrNe. The present study pursued the goals to examine the negative consequences of OrNe on mental health, whether HeOr buffers these effects, and the role of gender. Data from two cross-sectional online surveys were combined (study 1 n = 385, 310 women; study 2 n = 398, 265 women; mean age: 28.9 ± 12.0 year) both generating data on psychological wellbeing, life satisfaction, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in relation to OrNe and HeOr (Teruel Orthorexia Scale). By means of correlation and moderation analyses, OrNe was shown to be associated with poorer mental health, especially in the female sample. In terms of HeOr, clear gender differences appeared. There were no meaningful correlations in women. In men, however, HeOr correlated with better mental health. Further, the link between OrNe and poorer mental health was mitigated when there were high HeOr levels. Present findings support the hypotheses that OrNe is associated with pathological consequences and that HeOr may act as a buffer for these consequences. Gender differences in the clinical manifestation of orthorexic eating confirm previous knowledge and have important implications for targeted prevention and treatment strategies. MDPI 2020-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7761061/ /pubmed/33260760 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12123662 Text en © 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Strahler, Jana
The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title_full The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title_fullStr The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title_full_unstemmed The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title_short The Dark Side of Healthy Eating: Links between Orthorexic Eating and Mental Health
title_sort dark side of healthy eating: links between orthorexic eating and mental health
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7761061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33260760
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12123662
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