Prevalence of Risk for Orthorexia in Athletes Using the ORTO-15 Questionnaire: A Systematic Mini-Review

Abstract

The article aims to summarize the literature about the profile of risk of orthorexia in athletes using the ORTO-15 questionnaire. The search was performed at PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Sport Discus databases, using the terms “orthorexia” AND “athletes” with the respective entry terms. A multistage process of selection followed the PRISMA 2020 recommendation. A total of 688 articles were identified, and six studies were available for the final process. The prevalence of risk for orthorexia was assessed by the articles by the ORTO-15 questionnaire and ranged between 38 and 35 points. The comparison between male and female athletes and, athletes and non-athletes was not significant in the six articles. In conclusion, the review highlights that athletes from different sports, included in the review, do not present a risk of orthorexia nervosa considering the cutoff of 40 points, but not 35 points. Also, athletes present the same orthorexic behavior compared to non-athletes, demonstrating that orthorexia is an issue that needs to be considered in the general population. Moreover, a special focus should be given on the ORTO-15 questionnaire, about the sensitivity to diagnose the prevalence of orthorexia, especially in athletes.

The Prevalence and Selected Risk Factors of Orthorexia Nervosa Disorder Using the Orto-15 Test

“…The pathological behavior of people affected by orthorexia focuses on the aspect of nutrition, including the detailed analysis of the composition of products consumed and the gradual elimination of those which may raise an affected person's doubts about their potentially negative impact on health. Planning the type, composition and handling of meals becomes the overriding goal each day, and the rejection of more and more products from the menu on the grounds that they are harmful can lead to serious health consequences, including malnutrition and secondary diseases resulting from nutritional deficiencies [7,10,19,20,21,22,28].…”

“…The factors that are related to the development of this disorder are also discussed, and those particularly often described include: age, gender, BMI, educational profile (especially medical professions including dietitians) [1,2,7,10,13,16,18,20,21,25,27,28,29,20,21,22,23,27,28,29,30], and recent reports particularly emphasize the potential importance of chronic diseases and complaints requiring diet therapy, while also pointing out the paucity of data in this aspect [11,17,26]. Research findings on potential risk factors are highly divergent and one reason for this problem is attributed to the inadequacies of the ORTO-15 test [3,7,9,19,20,21,22,23].…”

“…The ORTO-15 test, the most popular and internationally used screening test to diagnose orthorexia, was used in the present study. In the literature, it has been critically discussed by many authors in terms of its repeatedly presented lack of internal consistency and poor psychometric design, having ambiguous and differently interpreted wording by respondents, and the problem of a possibly inappropriate cut-off point of indicating orthorexia resulting in overdiagnosis of the phenomenon [1,3,7,9,12,13,14,16,18,19,20,21,22,23,25,26,29]. However, none of the less popular tools used to date, such as the EHQ eating habits questionnaire, the Dusseldorf Orthorexia Scale -DOS and others, provides a more suitable alternative due to similar limitations recognized by their authors or other researchers [1].…”

Description of the menstrual cycle status, energy availability, eating behavior and physical performance in a youth female soccer team

“…The ON is a recent eating behavior, and less is known about the prevalence in youth athletes. It was recently reported that higher values of ON can be presented in athletes as well as non-athletes 6 . The present study is the first up to now to describe the values of ON in youth female soccer players.…”

“…Orthorexia nervosa can be interpreted as a pathological fixation on healthy nutrition. The concept was introduced in the 90s but yet not recognized as an eating disorder by some organizations 6 .…”