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Purpose Recent guidelines point out the possible risk for orthorexia nervosa in functional gastrointestinal disorders, however, to date, no study has investigated this association. The present study aimed to explore the potential relationship between irritable bowel syndrome-related functional gastrointestinal symptoms and certain maladaptive eating behaviours, such as symptoms of orthorexia nervosa and emotional eating. Methods A sample of 644 Hungarian volunteers (Mage = 22.37; SDage = 3.95) completed a survey with the following questionnaires: the Rome IV Diagnostic Questionnaire (R4DQ) for adults—Irritable bowel syndrome module for the measurement of functional gastrointestinal symptoms, the Hungarian version of the ORTO-15 questionnaire (ORTO-11-Hu) to assess symptoms of orthorexia nervosa, the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) Emotional Eating subscale to measure symptoms of emotional eating and the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI) for the assessment of health anxiety. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to explore the associations between the measured variables, and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed mediation models. Results Functional gastrointestinal symptoms were positively related to symptoms of orthorexia nervosa and emotional eating. The relationship between functional gastrointestinal symptoms and symptoms of orthorexia nervosa was partially mediated by health anxiety, while the association between functional gastrointestinal symptoms and symptoms of emotional eating was partially mediated by symptoms of orthorexia nervosa. Conclusion Our findings highlight the possible risk for developing orthorexic symptoms in functional gastrointestinal symptoms, which could lead to other types of disordered eating patterns, such as emotional eating. The results also underscore the potential role of health anxiety in these relationships. Level of evidence Level V (descriptive cross-sectional study).

Objectives Mindful eating has been suggested to contribute a healthier relationship to food. However, its conceptualization and operationalization need further investigation. Our aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Hungarian version of the Mindful Eating Questionnaire (MEQ). Methods A cross-sectional survey study including a sample of Hungarian university students (N = 323) was conducted to unveil the construct validity of the MEQ. Results The results of the confirmatory factor analysis revealed an inadequate fit to the original model. Applying exploratory factor analysis (EFA) confirmed the presence of the original five factors with minor deviations from the original structure. Correlation coefficients between factors ranged from − 0.36 to 0.52. As a further step, principal component analysis of the primary factors uncovered two second-order components, self-regulation, and awareness. A multivariate regression analysis with structural equation modeling revealed that higher levels of self-regulation in eating were positively related to trait mindfulness (β = 0.13, p < 0.05) and negatively related to uncontrolled eating (β = − 0.20, p < 0.05), emotional eating (β = − 0.40, p < 0.05), and meditation practice (β = − 0.12, p < 0.05). In turn, awareness was related to lower body mass index (β = − 0.20, p < 0.05) and higher levels of emotional eating (β = 0.20, p < 0.05). Conclusions These results suggest inadequate coherence of the subscales and an unclear locus of mindful eating within the nomological network of related constructs. Our study contributes to the progress in the measurement of mindful eating by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the MEQ. The outcome of the construct validation testing implies the need for further exploration of mindful eating.

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