ArticleEating and weight disorders : EWD2020
What are people's experiences of orthorexia nervosa? A qualitative study of online blogs.
Article in Eating and weight disorders : EWD, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Constructing Moral Selves Through Food: A Qualitative Study of Orthorexic Eating Practices in the UK.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Exploring early maladaptive schemas in healthy eating and orthorexia nervosa tendencies: a structural equation modeling approach.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Perfectionism, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and health-thinness-cleanliness motivations as primary correlates of orthorexia nervosa.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2026Article
- Relationships among nutrition knowledge level, healthy eating obsessions, body image, and social media usage in females: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Beyond healthy eating: introducing ONI-Hu, the Hungarian version of the Orthorexia Nervosa Inventory.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2025Article
- Orthorexia nervosa in dietitians and dietetics students-prevalence, risk factors, and interventions: a scoping review using a systematic approach.Nutrition reviews · 2025Article
- Higher orthorexia tendency among female fashion models: an empirical international study.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2024Article
- Unveiling Anxiety Factors in Orthorexia Nervosa: A Qualitative Exploration of Fears and Coping Strategies.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Systematic review of social media addiction among health workers during the pandemic Covid-19.Heliyon · 2023Review
- "Your struggles are valid, you are worthy of help and you deserve to recover": narratives of recovery from orthorexia nervosa.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2023Article
- Association between religiosity and orthorexia nervosa with the mediating role of self-esteem among a sample of the Lebanese population - short communication.Journal of eating disorders · 2022Article
- Food Bloggers on the Twitter Social Network: Yummy, Healthy, Homemade, and Vegan Food.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Orthorexia nervosa is a concern in gastroenterology: A scoping review.Neurogastroenterology and motility · 2022Article
- Orthorexia Nervosa and its association with obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms: initial cross-cultural comparison between Polish and Italian university students.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2022Article
- Orthorexia Nervosa and Disordered Eating Attitudes, Self-Esteem and Physical Activity among Young Adults.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Low self-esteem predicts orthorexia nervosa, mediated by spiritual attitudes among frequent exercisers.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2021Article
- Misinformation, thin-ideal internalization, and resistance to treatment: an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the experience of orthorexia nervosa.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2021Article
- Using Behavioural Reasoning Theory to Explore Reasons for Dietary Restriction: A Qualitative Study of Orthorexic Behavioural Tendencies in the UK.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Article
- Assessing Orthorexia Nervosa: Validation of the Polish Version of the Eating Habits Questionnaire in a General Population Sample.Nutrients · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeOrthorexia nervosa (ON) is a proposed new eating disorder, used to describe a pathological obsession with healthy or 'clean' eating. Although some quantitative research has been carried out in ON, very little qualitative work has been published to date to explore individual experiences of ON. Thus, this study aimed to explore individuals' personal experiences of ON, as described in online blogs.
methodsFifteen women bloggers, who self-identified as having ON, consented for their blog entries to be analysed in this study. Forty pre-existing blog entries describing the first-person experiences of ON were analysed using thematic analysis.
resultsThree key themes were discussed: (1) initial motivations for a healthier lifestyle, (2) fuelling the problem-social influences, and: (3) when healthy becomes unhealthy. Bloggers described the role of social messages, comparison with others around ideas of 'healthiness', as well as confusion around diagnosis as factors influencing their disordered eating. They also described the exacerbating impact of perfectionism and perceived control, as well as a confirmatory cycle of fear and avoidance. For some bloggers, increased physical symptoms in response to feared foods provided confirmation for these fears, further exacerbating food avoidance.
conclusionWhilst the debate around the diagnosis of ON continues, these bloggers' accounts suggest that ON is experienced as a legitimate, debilitating disorder, worthy of clinical and research investigation. This study provides evidence of some of the potential triggers and maintaining factors for this disordered eating style. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level V, qualitative descriptive study.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.