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ABSTRACT

UNIVERSA MEDICINA

Limited health literacy increases the risk of orthorexia

nervosa among urban schoolteachers

Gülay Yilmazel* and Serpil Bozdogan**

BACKGROUND
Orthorexia nervosa (ON) describes a pathological obsession with proper
nutrition that is characterized by a restrictive diet, ritualized patterns of
eating, and rigid avoidance of foods believed to be unhealthy or impure.
Limited health literacy may play a role in the onset and progression of
orthorexia. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between
health literacy and ON among urban schoolteachers.

METHODS
This cross-sectional study was conducted in central Black Sea region of
Turkey with 420 primary and secondary schoolteachers aged between 18
and 51 years. A questionnaire form including socio-demographic
characteristics was used. The Orthorexia Nervosa Questionnaire (ORTO-
15) was used to assess orthorexia nervosa behavior and the Turkey Health
Literacy Scale (TSOY-32) to assess health literacy. Simple binary and multiple
binary logistic regression analyses were carried out to verify the
associations between the variables.

RESULTS
Of the study group 46.4% were in the 40-49 year age group, 53.8% were
male, 78.6% had ON and 93.6% had limited health literacy. Nearly all of the
orthorexics (96.4%) had limited health literacy. Female gender, Instagram
use and limited health literacy was significantly associated with ON. Limited
health literacy increases the risk of ON 4.85 times among teachers
(aOR=4.85;95% C.I. : 2.15-10.94;p=0.000).

CONCLUSION
The current findings suggest that limited health literacy is the strongest
risk factor for ON among urban schoolteachers. School health literacy and
social media literacy programs can open a new window into revealing ON.

Keywords : Urban, schoolteachers, psychological eating disorder, health
literacy

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
pISSN: 1907-3062 / eISSN: 2407-2230

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18051/UnivMed.2020.v39.162-170

September-December 2020                                                                                                                              Vol.39- No.3

Ci te t his article as: Yi lma zel G,
Bozdogan S. Limited health literacy
increases the risk of orthorexia nervosa
among urban schoolteachers. Univ Med
202 0;39 :1 6 2 -7 0 .  doi : 10 .18 05 1/
UnivMed.2020.v39.162-170

*Hitit University Faculty of Health
Science, Public Health Department,
Çorum/TURKEY
**Hitit University Health Science
Institution, Çorum, TURKEY

Corespondence:
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gülay Yilmazel
Hitit University Faculty of Health
Sciences,
Public Health Department, Corum,
TURKEY
Mobile: +903642230730-31
Email : gulcenarin@yahoo.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2487-5464

Date of first submission, June 19, 2020
Date of final revised submission,
October 6, 2020
Date of acceptance, October 12, 2020

This open access article is distributed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0
International License



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INTRODUCTION

Noncommunicable diseases are one of the
most important health problems of the 21st
century and responsible for 41 million of the 57
million deaths in 2016 at the global level.
Unhealthy diet is one of the key risk factors for
noncommunicable diseases.(1) Unhealthy diet
pattern has increased worldwide.(2) The pattern
of nutrition shows a shift towards foods containing
high salt, fat and sugar. Rapidly growing obesity
prevalence due to sedentary lifestyle leads to a
dramatic increase in diabetes, cardiovascular
diseases, hypertension, osteoarthritis, cancer and
many other health problems.(3,4) In developed
societies, the main focus of the people is
consciousness on healthy nutrition and selectivity
towards the quality, quantity and type of food.
Developing a fixed idea on the amount or type of
food often causes an irregular dietary pattern and
excessively results in psychological eating
disorders.(5) Dissatisfaction with one’s body,
distorted body image perception and obsession
with thinness are central to clinically diagnosed
eating disorders (ED) such as anorexia nervosa
(AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder
(BED) and eating disorders not otherwise
specified (EDNOS).(6) These factors may also
contribute to other non-clinical types of disorders
including orthorexia nervosa (ON).(7) Orthorexia
nervosa defines a pathological obsession for
proper nutrition, characterized by a restrictive diet,
ritualized eating pattern, and strict avoidance of
unhealthy or supplemented foods.(8) The mean
prevalence of orthorexic symptoms is reported
to be 6.9% (9) for the general population and
28.3%-74.5% for high risk professions (dietetics,
medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery,
optometry, physical education and sport sciences,
sociology, and teaching).(7,10)

In Tur key, ON pr evalence  is high
(approximately 50%) among candidate doctors
and nurses.(11, 12) To assess ON, the Orthorexia
Nervosa Questionnaire (ORTO-15)(13) is widely
used, despite criticism regarding this research
tool.(14) A study suggested that the ORTO-15

questionnaire may not be able to distinguish
pathological behaviors and is not clinically
relevant.(15) However, a recent review of the
studies using ORTO-15 showed that Cronbach’s
alpha coefficients were ranging from 0.83 to
0.91.(16) In the original version of ORTO-15, to
distinguish the orthore xic tendency it is
recommended to use the cut-off point below 40
(17 ), and so me studies follo wed this
recommendation.(18,19) Nevertheless, there are
also suggestions to lower the cut-off point to
35.(18,20)

In recent years, the density and popularity
of social media channels have been blamed for
the increased incidence of eating disorders
worldwide.(21-24) Previous studies have revealed
that individuals with adequate health literacy
consume less sugar-sweetened drinks and fried
foods, and better amounts of vegetables and
fruits.(25,26)

Health literacy refers to the competencies
related to accessing, understanding, appraising
and applying health information in the domains of
healthcare, disease prevention and health
promotion, respectively.(27) Since its importance
is increasingly recognized, to date, various
frameworks or scales are available for assessing
and measuring health literacy based on different
subjects, diseases, or theoretical foundations.(28-
32) To measure health literacy in the general
population, there are also different measurement
tools such as the European Health Literacy survey
(HLS-EU-Q47)(33) and Turkish Health Literacy
Scales.(34) However, no reliable, definitive, and
comparable health literacy scale exists for the
global population. In Turkey, about seven of every
ten people has limited health literacy level (34,35)

and orthorexia nervosa prevalence reaches
75%.(36)

Risk factors or characteristics that were
listed by professionals to be associated with ON
were excessive exercise,(37) anxiety, use of social
media, thin ideal internalization, and harm
avoidance and low self-directedness.(38) However,
risk factors that may be particularly relevant to
ON could include problems with health literacy.(8)



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Teachers are model people in creating healthy
lifestyle behaviors and providing health education
i n s c h o ol s. T he r e  h a s  be e n no d e t a i l e d
investigation of orthorexia tendency and health
literacy among teachers. The aim of this study
was to determine the relationship between health
literacy and orthorexia nervosa among urban
schoolteachers.

METHODS

Research design
This cross-sectional study was conducted

between October-December 2019 in Corum city
located in central Black Sea region of Turkey.

Study subjects
The population consisted of 1914 teachers

working in urban primary and secondary schools.
Based on the prevalence of ON of 45% in our
country(13), the minimum sample size was
calculated as 317 teachers. Participants were
recruited from nine public schools (four primary
and five secondary) covering the urban area. A
total of eligible 442 teachers from primary and
secondary schools were included to the study
with the stratified sampling method. Participants
with diagnosed diet-related diseases (diabetes
mellitus type I and II, Crohn’s disease, celiac
d is e a se ,  ga s t r i t is )  we r e  e xc l ud e d  ( 2 2
participants).

Instruments
Participants were visited at their schools

and completed an informed consent form, then
received a survey including sociodemographic
information, the use of social media, ORTO-15
and Turkey Health Literacy SCALE-32 (TSOY-
32) questionnaire. The survey took 20-30
minutes to answer the questionnaire. Three
visits were made for each participant who could
not be reached.

The data was collected with a 64-item
form. The first stage of the questionnaire form
included the participants’ socio-demographic
characteristics (age, gender, institution, branch,

chronic condition, health perception, weight
satisfaction, height and weight to calculate BMI),
and details about the use of social media.

Social media details
Participants were asked “Which social

media channels do you use?” and could select
multiple responses out of: Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, Snapcheck
and LinkedIn. In the second stage, in order to
identify orthorexia tendency and to assess health
literacy levels, respectively, the ORTO-15 scale
and TSOY-32 scale were used.

Orthorexia nervosa (ORTO-15) Scale
The scale consists of 15 items and is written

in 4-degree format; always (4), often (3),
sometimes (2), never (1). Items 2, 5, 8 and 9
(items 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15) scored on the
s c a l e  a r e r e ve r se d.  T he  a n sw e r s  wh i c h
distinguish criteria for orthorexia, were given as
“1”, and those with a tendency to normal eating
behavior were given as “4”. A minimum of 15
and a maximum of 60 points can be obtained
from the scale. The cut-off point of the scale
was considered to be 40 in predicting orthorexic
behavior and tendency. Those with ORTO-15
scale score of <40 were considered to be
orthorexic and those with a score of 40 were
evaluated as normal.(13) An adaptation of the
scale into Turkish was conducted in 2008.(39) In
this study the original cut-off of <40 was
considered as indicative of orthorexia nervosa.

Turkey Health Literacy Scale (TSOY-32)
The 32-item scale’s validity and reliability

were developed based on the HLS-EU Study
Co nc e p tua l  Fr a me wo r k ( HL S-EU
CONSORTIUM, 2012) in 2016. The scores
obtained from the scale vary between 0 and 50.
According to the scores, the level of health
literacy is classified into four categories: 0-25 =
inadequate health literacy; >25-33 = problematic
health literacy; >33-42 = adequate health
literacy; >42-50 = excellent health literacy.(34)

In this study, the inadequate/problematic health

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A B C

literacy of the participants was categorized as
“limited” and adequate/excellent health literacy
as “sufficient”.

Statistical analysis
Data management and analysis were

performed using SPSS software (version 17).
Simple binary and multiple binary logistic
regression analyses were used. To predict
significant factors for orthorexia tendency, Odds
ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were
calculated. Significance levels were set at the 5%
level.

Ethical clearance
The research was planned in accordance

with Helsinki Principles. Prior to undertaking the
investigation ethical clearance was obtained from

a local Non-Interventional Clinical Research
Ethics Committee (2019-324).

RESULTS

Table 1 presents associations of several risk
factors and orthorexia nervosa. In general, 78.6%
teachers were orthorexics and the mean score
of the ORTO-15 scale was 37.4 (SD=3.5). In
the study group, 46.4% were between 40-49
years of age, 53.8% were male, 78.6% were
secondary schoolteachers and the mean age was
43.4±7.5 years. A minority of participants (21%)
indicated that they had any chronic disease and
almost three out of four teachers had good health
perception. Just over half of those satisfied with
body weight and had normal BMI. Orthorexia
nervosa was significantly more common among

Variables 
Orthorexia nervosa    

Orthorexic 
(n=330, 78.6%) 

Normal 
(n=90, 21.4%) 

OR 95% C.L. p-value 

Age (yrs)      
25-39 101 (30.6) 25 (27.8) 0.96 0.52-1.77 0.873 
40-49 152 (46.1) 43 (47.8) 0.79 0.37-1.70  
50-64 77 (23.3) 22 (24.4) 1   

Gender      
Male 169 (51.2) 57 (63.3) 0.97 0.37-0..98 0.041 
Female 161 (48.8) 33 (36.7) 1   

Institution      
Primary school 70 (21.2) 20 (22.2) 0.94 0.51-1.73 0.836 
Secondary school 260 (78.8) 70 (77.8) 1   

Chronic health problem      
Yes 68 (18.2) 20 (31.2) 1   
No 262 (81.8) 70 (68.8) 1.06 0.52-2.16 0.698 

Health perception      
Good 249 (75.5) 66 (73.3) 1   
Moderate/poor 81 (24.5) 24 (26.7) 1.15 0.60-2.20 0.680 

Weight satisfaction      
Satisfied 188 (57.0) 55 (61.1) 1   
No satisfied 142 (43.0) 35 (38.9) 0.83 0.45-1.53 0.481 

BMI      
Normal 177 (53.6) 45 (50.0) 1.39 0.24-2.15 0.513 
Overweight 123 (37.3) 39 (43.3) 1.24 0.68-2.262  
Obese 30 (9.1) 6 (6.7) 1   

Use of social media      
Instagram 196 (59.4) 39 (43.3) 1.73 1.03-2.89 0.036 
No Instagram user 134 (40.6) 51 (56.7) 1   

Health literacy      
Limited 318 (96.4) 75 (83.3) 4.95 2.16-11.37 0.000 
Adequate 12 (3.6) 15 (16.7) 1   

Table 1. Associations of several risk factors and orthorexia nervosa



166

females (p<0.05). There were no significant
associations between orthorexia nervosa and
age groups, institution, chronic health problem,
health perception, weight satisfaction, BMI
(p>0.05). More than half of the study group
stated that they used Instagram and orthorexia
nervosa was found to be significantly more
common among Instagram users (p<0.05).
Overall, the limited health literacy rate was
93.6% and the sufficient health literacy rate was
6.4%. The mean score was 19.8 (SD=8.9) for
the TSOY-32 scale. Limited health literacy was
significantly more common among orthorexics
(p<0.001).

Multiple binary logistic regression analysis
of variables affecting ON is given in Table 2.
ON was 4.85 (aOR=4.85;95% C.I.=2.15-10.94;
p=0.000) times higher in those with limited health
literacy, 1.69 (aOR=1.69;95% C.I.=1.04-2.75;
p=0.033) times higher among Instagram users
and 0.51 (aOR=0.51;95% C.I.=0.29-0.91;
p=0.041) times lower among males.

DISCUSSION
Al t h ou gh  i t  d o e s  n o t  a pp ea r  i n  t he

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM), ON has created a research
area. The diagnostic criteria recommended for
ON include focus on healthy eating, food anxiety
and obsession with dietary restrictions, and that
these behaviors cause clinical disorders.(6, 40)

Despite the fact that orthorexic individuals strive
for goodness, such behavior often leads to
significant negative effects on their quality of
life. In extreme cases, orthorexic individuals
prefer to be hungry instead of eating the
“wrong” food.(41,42)

Beliefs in maintaining optimal health, the
desire to stay healthy and fit and the necessity
to manage non-communicable diseases make

individuals more sensitive to nutrition. The
present study fills a gap in the literature by
exploring health literacy in orthorexics and
provides an exciting opportunity to advance our
knowledge of orthorexia nervosa.

In this study, four of every five teachers
were determined to be orthorexics. It has been
stated that the prevalence of orthorexia nervosa
varies according to the communities. A total of
6.9% of the general population in Germany (9)

and 10.9% of young adults in Italy (43) are
orthorexic. It was reported that the prevalence
in America is less than 1%.(15) In Hungarian and
Lebanese studies, the prevalence of orthorexia
has been shown to be 74.2% and 74.5%,
respectively.(10,44) On the other hand, in studies
conducted in our country, the prevalence of
orthorexia was observed to be spread over a
wide spectrum (12.0-75.8%).(12, 36, 45). The use
of different instruments and cut-off points
depending on cultural or religious backgrounds
may be explain these differences.

However, the results obtained from the
present study were higher than those from the
other studies conducted abroad and was in line
with the Hungarian and Lebanese studies. In our
study such a higher prevalence was anticipated
as being due to the educator group and suggests
poor knowledge of nutrition among teachers.

In the present study, it was determined that
almost all of the teachers had limited health
literacy. In Sri Lanka (46) 32.5% of teachers and
in Turkey (47) 73.8% of teachers were shown to
have an insufficient / problematic health literacy
level. It has been reported that health literacy is
moderate in Iranian teachers.(48) Contrary to
expectations, the present study exhibits an
unignorable level of low health literacy among
teachers. Insufficient health competence of
teachers was a thoughtful result. One of the

Variables Adjusted OR 95%CL p-value 
Limited health literacy 4.85 2.15-10.94 0.000 
Instagram use 1.69 1.04-2.75 0.033 
Male 0.51 0.29-0.91 0.041 

 

Table 2. Multiple Logistic Regression analysis of variables affecting orthorexia nervosa

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issues that emerges from this finding is updating
teachers’ knowledge about health protection,
development and treatment of diseases. It
suggests that school health literacy programs are
urgently needed.

However, in our study nearly all of the
orthorexics had a limited level of health literacy
and it has been determined that the strongest risk
factor in orthorexia nervosa was limited health
literacy. As a matter of fact, a Turkish study
conducted in university students revealed that the
level of health literacy in orthorexics is lower.(45)

It can be said that normalization of nutritional
behaviors in orthorexic individuals is possible by
a sufficient level of health literacy. Health literacy
can be considered as an important aspect of
orthorexia and adequate health literacy may be
protective against orthorexia nervosa.

Gender differences in the occurrence of
or thorexia nervosa have not been clearly
demonstrated. As a matter of fact, in both national
and international studies, there was evidence that
the tendency to orthorexia differs between
genders.(49,50) On the other hand, a few studies
have reported that orthorexic trend did not differ
in terms of gender.(39,51) In the present study,
females had more orthorexics and higher risk of
ON than males. This result may be explained by
the behaviors to be expected in women with
nutrition-sensitive approaches due to their specific
life periods such as adolescence, reproductive
age, pregnancy, lactation and menopause.

Instagram and social media use are more
broadly related to mental health problems. Social
media use in young adults has been associated
with high levels of depression(23) as well as eating
disorders.(24) In the present study, Instagram use
was another risk factor for orthorexia. Indeed, a
study conducted in the United Kingdom reported
that the use of Instagram was associated with
increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa.(52)

Social media and ON are interconnected,
especially in the field of health promotion.(53)

The present study was limited to urban
primary and secondary area teachers. Other
limitations of the current study include the

following: (i) the use of the ORTO-15 tool due to
its limited ability to accurately define orthorexia;
(ii) the use of the TSOY-32 tool due to lack of a
global health literacy scale. Orthorexia is a
growing public health concern worldwide. Despite
its poor outcomes, there remains a paucity of
evidence on orthorexia and limited health literacy.
Overall, these findings provide an initial indication
of the role that limited health literacy may play in
the onset and progression of orthorexia. Clinical
screening of orthorexia nervosa should be planned
for teachers in the pre- and post-graduation stage.
School health literacy and social media literacy
programs can open a new window into
normalization of nutrition behaviors. Future studies
on the current topic are therefore recommended.

CONCLUSIONS

The current findings suggest that ON is
framed by limited health literacy among urban
primary and secondary schoolteachers. School
health literacy programs can open a new window
into revealing orthorexic tendencies among
teachers.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Co mp e t i ng i n t e r e s t s :  N o r e l e va nt
disclosures.

CONTRIBUTORS

GY contributed to the study conception,
design, and data acquisition; SB analyzed the
data; GY and SB interpreted the data and wrote
the manuscript; GY was involved in critically
revising the manuscript. All authors have read
and agreed to the published version of the
manuscript.

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Yilmazel, Bozdogan                                                                                                     Orthorexia and Limited Health Literacy