Objective: Orthorexia is a pathological fixation about the consumption of healthy food. The present study aimed to reveal the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of ORTO-15, which was developed to evaluate orthorexia, and to investigate the relationship betweenorthorexia, and eating attitude, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and some demographic variables.
Method: The study included 994 participants aged between 19 and 66 years. ORTO-15, the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory, and the Eating Attitude Test-40 were administered to the participants.
Results: A 3-factor solution with varimax rotation explained 40.62% of the variance. When 4 items with factor loadings below+/- 0.50 were eliminated from ORTO-15, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.62. The remaining 11 items were thought to have statistically satisfactory properties for the Turkish version of ORTO and were collectively referred to as ORTO-11. This version was used to investigate the relationship between orthorexia, and eating attitude and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Pathological eating attitude and obsessive-compulsive symptoms were related to orthorexia. Women exhibited more orthorexic symptoms then men. In the present study high a body mass index was an important variable for orthorexia, but only together with gender (female), pathological eating attitude, and increased obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The results, implications, and limitations of the study are discussed.
Conclusion: ORTO-11 demonstrated statistically satisfactory properties. Orthorexia was related to pathological eating attitude and obsessive-compulsive symptoms; however, caution should be used when generalizing the reported results.