Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) is a condition characterized by rigidity around the quality of one’s food consumption. While ON is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, text revision (DSM-5-TR), a large proportion of professionals who treat eating disorders (EDs) report having observed this phenomenon in their clinical practice (Vandereycken, 2011). Despite this, many existing measures of ON have demonstrated poor psychometric properties, which likely impact the ability of clinicians to identify and treat those with ON. One recently developed measure, the Orthorexia Nervosa Inventory (ONI), appears promising. The present study sought to confirm the 3-factor structure of the ONI demonstrated by Oberle et al. (2021) during its development, while also assessing the relationship between ON symptoms, transdiagnostic ED symptoms, gender, and impairment. Consistent with prior studies, factor analysis yielded three factors in the present study: Impairment, Behavior, and Emotion-Cognition (Kaya et al., 2022; Oberle et al., 2021; Zagaria et al., 2023). Examination of Tucker’s congruence coefficients showed that women and men demonstrated fair similarity on the Impairment and Behavior factors, though this was not the case for the Emotion-Cognition factor, suggesting that the Emotion-Cognition factor did not measure the same construct among men and women. Lastly, results of this study demonstrated that both transdiagnostic ED symptoms and respective ON factors appeared to be equally predictive of the Emotion-Cognition factor, but that respective ON factors accounted for significantly more variance in the Impairment and Behavior factors compared to ED symptoms. Furthermore, one specific ED symptom (i.e., body checking) was a partial mediator in the relationship between ON-related Emotion-Cognition and ON-related Impairment, suggesting that ED symptoms may indirectly affect impairment associated with ON. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate that ON is a multi-faceted construct that is experienced differently based on gender and is predicted by transdiagnostic eating disorder symptoms. Further research is needed in these areas, particularly regarding symptom presentation among men.
Date
7-11-2025
Recommended Citation
Chapman, Hannah M., "Orthorexia Nervosa's Factor Structure: Relationships with Transdiagnostic Eating Disorder Symptoms, Impairment, and Gender" (2025). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 6835.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6835
Committee Chair
Cohen, Alex S.
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.6835