Orthorexia nervosa is associated with positive body image and life satisfaction in Chinese elderly: Evidence for a positive psychology perspective
Abstract
Objective: Obsessive attention to healthy eating might paradoxically lead to physical and psychosocial impairments, a potential eating disorder termed orthorexia nervosa (ON). An ongoing debate concerns whether ON should be categorized as an eating disorder, an obsessive–compulsive disorder, or a mental disorder at all. A missing voice in this debate is ON in the elderly, which remains unknown, despite health being a more central issue in everyday life during old age. Similarly missing is ON in East Asia, which remains largely unexplored.
Method: The current study investigated ON in 313 Chinese elderly (M = 67.90, SD = 7.94) using the Chinese version of the Düsseldorf Orthorexia Scale (C-DOS). Questionnaires were used to measure traditional eating disorder symptomatology, body image (body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and functionality appreciation), lifestyle behaviors (fruit and vegetable consumption and time spent on physical activity), and indexes of well-being (psychological distress, food-related quality of life, and life satisfaction).
Results: ON symptoms were positively related to physical activity, fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, body appreciation, functionality appreciation, and life satisfaction, but negatively related to body dissatisfaction. Compared with those without ON, the elderly with ON scored higher on positive psychological/lifestyle measures but lower on negative psychological measures.
Discussion: Contrary to the dominant characterization of ON as a variant of disordered eating, in Chinese elderly ON was associated with several positive lifestyle and psychological measures. Thus, ON in the elderly might not be viewed as a form of disordered eating but can be protective and beneficial.
HE Jinbo
Assistant Professor in Applied Psychology
My research interests include the mental health of children and adolescents, obesity, eating behaviors, eating disorders, body image, and various advanced quantitative research methods (e.g., structural equation modeling, latent growth curve modeling, finite mixture modeling, meta-analysis).
ZHAO Yiqing
Current Undergraduate Advisee in Applied Psychology
