“In-between orthorexia” profile: the co-occurrence of pathological and healthy orthorexia among male and female non-clinical adolescents

Abstract

Plain English summary The profile of adolescents with orthorexic eating behaviors remains to be explored. Lebanese adolescents in this study were categorized into three groups: “Low orthorexia”, “Moderate in-between orthorexia” and “High in-between orthorexia”. Significant differences between clusters regarding their levels of stress, depression, anxiety, and self-esteem was observed, yet they were found to be negligible due to poor effect sizes. Findings from this study suggest that ON and HO can indeed co-occur among adolescents and that this co-occurrence can be experienced at different severity levels.

Keywords

• Orthorexia
• Typological study
• Cluster analysis
• Students
• Adolescence
• Lebanon