Orthorexia in university students

Orthorexia nervosa (ON), the persistent concern of maintaining the self-imposed diet to improve one's health, is frequent among students in the biomedical field and in the sports context. The typical behaviors of orthorexia can be associated with a negative image of one's own body, despite the subject's strong interest in appropriate and healthy food choices. The aim of this work was to assess the prevalence of orthorexia nervosa in university students in relation to psychological conditions and any psychiatric disorders. To observe differences in lifestyle, food choices and psychophysical wellbeing, some questionnaires have been administered (ORTO-15 and subscales, MBSRQ, EAT 26, BUT, K10, SSI, FNS, MED-55, AUDIT) to evaluate general information, anthropometric measures, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, smoking and voluptuary habits, time dedicated to physical activity and the attention and importance that subjects pay in their life to nutrition. The ORTO-15 positive subjects were about 81% of women and 70% of men, with a higher prevalence in the female sample. As emerged from the EAT-26 scores, 7% of women were potentially at risk of eating disorders, of which 5% also positive for K-10, and 10% of men, all simultaneously positive for K-10. Women who tested positive for more than one test, who appear to be at greater risk for eating disorders and stress, were also those who reported greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet. As emerged from the average MBSRQ scores, women were the most attentive to body image. Orthorexia did not appear to be associated with BMI, since all ORTO-7 positive subjects were on average normal weight-overweight. Interestingly, all underweight subjects, who were women, test negative for all questionnaires administered. Therefore, it is not immediate to identify the orthorexic personality, since it is necessary to evaluate the psychological picture even with more questionnaires.