ORTHOREXIA NERVOSA IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH BODY IMAGE PERCEPTION

Abstract

The level of academic studies into orthorexic characters and actions has increased within the past five years. However, the studies are still founded on descriptive information, which produced various inconsistent results and prevalent data. The connection between orthorexia and socio-cultural context has been investigated poorly and is still yet to be understood fully. 554 tertiary-level students tested by using a protocol that includes conscious participation and informed consent during the research. In addition, the participants completed the ORTO-15 interpreted to our local language, the Eating Attitude Test – YTT-40, which assesses eating attitude, the Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Questionnaire – MOCL, which assesses symptoms on obsessive-compulsive disorders, and the form for personal information. The results showed that there were no visible gender disparities in the ORTO-15. However, male participants recorded lower scores, which is means greater severity, and are connected to lower pathological patterns of eating as symptoms and behaviours, whereas, among the female students, there were lower obsessive-compulsive signs and pathological body image discomfort. Therefore, more studies that have to do with the connection between Orthorexia Nervosa and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, will be useful to know the causality.