Abstract:

In this study, it was aimed to determine the prevalence of Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) among students receiving sports education and to examine the relationships between eating attitudes and demographic variables. The population of the research consisted of approximately 1200 students studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences of Fırat University. The study was carried out with 368 students (132 girls, 236 boys). ORTO-15 (Orthorexia Nervosa Assessment Test) scale was used to evaluate ON tendency and YTT-40 (Eating Attitude Test) was used to evaluate eating behaviors. The data were analyzed with the SPSS 17.0 package program. In the analyzes performed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Independent Samples Kruskal-Wallis test, the level of significance was accepted as p<0.05. No significant difference was found between gender, age groups, BMI groups and ON tendency (p>0.05). Orthorexic tendency of married students is significantly higher than other students (p<0.05). Eating attitude disorder is more likely to be seen in female students (p<0.05). There was no difference between the ORTO-15 and YTT-40 scores according to the students' status of taking nutrition lessons. It was found that the ON tendency of the students who did regular physical activity was significantly higher than the other students (p<0.05). A weak negative correlation was found between ORTO-15 and YTT-40 scores (r=-0.366, p=0.000). As a result, it was found that most of the students participating in our study had orthorexic tendencies. However, the fact that this probability is high is not significant enough because the eating attitude test scores are not at a level to support the existence of an eating disorder risk. There is a need for more comprehensive studies on ON, the prevalence of which is increasing.

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