The DOI matches its Crossref record; 54 of the 56 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
On orthorexia nervosa: A review of the literature and proposed diagnostic criteria
Abstract
There has been a growing interest among clinicians and researchers about a condition where people restrict their diet based not on quantity of food they consume, but based on its quality. Bratman (1997) coined the term "orthorexia nervosa" to describe people whose extreme diets - intended for health reasons - are in fact leading to malnutrition and/or impairment of daily functioning. There has also recently been intense media interest in people whose highly restrictive "healthy" diet leads to disordered eating. Despite this condition being first described in the U.S., and receiving recent media interest here, orthorexia has largely gone unnoticed in the North American literature. This review article details the literature of orthorexia nervosa, describing its emergence as a condition first described by a physician in a yoga magazine, to its being discussed in the scientific literature. It also reviews prevalence studies and discusses marked shortcomings in the literature. Finally, diagnostic criteria are proposed, as are future directions for research.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Extreme diets intended for health reasons which impair daily function have been described as “orthorexia nervosa” which appears to be growing problem [197].”
From Food Addiction and Psychosocial Adversity: Biological Embedding, Contextual Factors, and Public Health Implications (2020) · cites this paper as [197]
Citations
Cites
Construct validity in psychological tests.
Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/h0040957 · Cited by 11,195
Cicchetti, D. V. (1994) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/1040-3590.6.4.284 · Cited by 9,349
Constructing validity: Basic issues in objective scale development.
Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (1995) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/1040-3590.7.3.309 · Cited by 6,567
Epidemiology of Eating Disorders: Incidence, Prevalence and Mortality Rates
Smink, F. R. E., van Hoeken, D., & Hoek, H. W. (2012) · Current Psychiatry Reports · doi:10.1007/s11920-012-0282-y · Cited by 1,978
Current Concepts in Validity and Reliability for Psychometric Instruments: Theory and Application
Cook, D. A., & Beckman, T. J. (2006) · The American Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2005.10.036 · Cited by 1,745
Geisinger, K. (1994) · Psychological Assessment · doi:10.1037/1040-3590.6.4.304 · Cited by 1,087
A Handbook of Test Construction: Introduction to Psychometric Design
Kline, P. (1987) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 626
Orthorexia nervosa: Validation of a diagnosis questionnaire
Donini, L. M., Marsili, D., Graziani, M. P., Imbriale, M., & CANNELLA, C. (2005) · Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia Bulimia and Obesity · doi:10.1007/bf03327537 · Cited by 545
The clinical basis of orthorexia nervosa: emerging perspectives
Koven, N. S., & Abry, A. W. (2015) · Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment · doi:10.2147/ndt.s61665 · Cited by 483
Donini, L. M., Marsili, D., Graziani, M. P., Imbriale, M., & CANNELLA, C. (2004) · Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia Bulimia and Obesity · doi:10.1007/bf03325060 · Cited by 432
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Bratman, 1997, The health food eating disorder, Yoga Journal, 42
- de Souza, 2014, Risk behavior for orthorexia nervosa in nutrition students, Revista Chilena de Nutricion, 63, 200
- Kinzl, 2005, Orthorexia nervosa: Eine häufige Essstörung bei Diätassistentinnen?, Ernahrungs-Umschau, 11, 436
- Pfeffer, 2014, Poular food blogger - the Blonde Vegan - admits to eating disorder, People
- Reddy, 2014, When healthy eating calls for treatment, Wall Street Journal
- Schwartz, 2015, Striving for the perfect diet is making us sick, Popular Science, 286, 24
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on eating disorder risk and symptoms
Rodgers, R. F., Lombardo, C., Cerolini, S., Franko, D. L., Omori, M., Fuller‐Tyszkiewicz, M., Linardon, J., Courtet, P., & Guillaume, S. (2020) · International Journal of Eating Disorders · doi:10.1002/eat.23318 · Cited by 650
Definition and Diagnostic Criteria for Orthorexia Nervosa: A Narrative Review of the Literature
Cena, H., Barthels, F., Cuzzolaro, M., Bratman, S., Brytek-Matera, A., Dunn, T., Varga, M., Missbach, B., & Donini, L. M. (2019) · Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity · doi:10.1007/s40519-018-0606-y · Cited by 398
Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa.
Turner, P. G., & Lefevre, C. E. (2017) · Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity · doi:10.1007/s40519-017-0364-2 · Cited by 380
“However, Dunn and Bratman [24] make a compelling argument that there is sufficient evidence to suggest ON is a distinct condition.”
BackgroundInfluentialIdentification and Management of Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents
Hornberger, L. L., Lane, M. A., Hornberger, L. L., Lane, M. A., Breuner, C. C., Alderman, E. M., Grubb, L. K., Powers, M. E., Upadhya, K. K., Wallace, S. B., et al. (2020) · PEDIATRICS · doi:10.1542/peds.2020-040279 · Cited by 330
Orthorexia nervosa: A review of psychosocial risk factors
McComb, S. E., & Mills, J. S. (2019) · Appetite · doi:10.1016/j.appet.2019.05.005 · Cited by 291
Metadata
- Authors
- Dunn, T. M., & Bratman, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Northern Colorado (US)
- California Pacific Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Dunn, Thomas M.
- Venue
- Eating Behaviors
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-04
- Volume
- 21
- Pages
- 11-17
- ISSN
- 1471-0153 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2200303661
- Cited by
- 635
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 57 · 2025: 66 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 70 · 2022: 93 · 2021: 82 · 2020: 73 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 11
- FWCI
- 34.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Eating Behaviors (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues
- Keywords
- orthorexia nervosa, diagnostic criteria, restrictive dieting, malnutrition, disordered eating, prevalence, functional disability
- MeSH terms
- Diet, Healthy, Adult, Feeding and Eating Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Diet, Feeding Behavior, Female, Humans, Male
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
