Associations Between Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance, Perfectionism, and Symptoms of Orthorexia Nervosa in Adolescent Football Athletes

TL;DR

This study explores how perfectionism and appearance-related pressures relate to orthorexia nervosa symptoms in adolescent football players.

Contribution

The study identifies perfectionism as a key factor in orthorexic tendencies among adolescent athletes.

Findings

Most athletes showed no risk of orthorexia nervosa, with only 4.1% exhibiting symptoms.

Perfectionism significantly increased the explained variance in orthorexic tendencies beyond sociocultural factors.

Sociocultural pressures had a smaller, overlapping effect when modeled with perfectionism.

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Orthorexia nervosa and appearance-related pressures are increasingly discussed in youth sport, where performance demands may amplify perfectionistic tendencies and the internalization of cultural body ideals. This study examined how sociocultural attitudes toward appearance and perfectionism relate to orthorexic tendencies among adolescent football athletes. Methods: The study included players from a soccer school, with a final sample of 83 participants. All were Polish citizens aged 16–19. A cross-sectional design was used with standardized instruments: the Polish adaptation of the Düsseldorf Orthorexia Scale (DOS) to index symptoms of ON risk, the Sport Perfectionism Questionnaire (positive/negative perfectionism), and the SATAQ-3 subscales to assess sociocultural internalization/pressures and information exposure. Results: Across the entire sample (n = 73), most athletes were classified as having no risk of ON—60 people (82.2%), a smaller proportion showed an increased risk—10 people (13.7%), and symptoms of ON were found in 3 people (4.1%). In bivariate analyses, orthorexic tendencies co-occurred with perfectionism. In multivariate models, the addition of the perfectionism block provided a significant increase in explained variance over age, BMI, and sociocultural attitudes, while the SATAQ-3 block contributed only a small amount of additional variance in the presence of other predictors. Conclusions: Orthorexic risk is present but not widespread in adolescent football athletes. Perfectionistic tendencies emerge as salient psychosocial correlates of orthorexic symptoms, while sociocultural pressures appear relevant but partly overlapping and not uniquely predictive when modeled together.