BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Eating Behavior
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1665790
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Approaches of Care in Eating Disorders: The Interdisciplinary Intervention With FamiliesView all articles
The Association between Different types of Childhood Trauma and Orthorexia Nervosa: an Observational Study
Provisionally accepted
Francesca Pesavento
Alessandro Alberto Rossi*- Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, School of Human and Social Sciences and Cultural Heritage, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) is characterized by the pursuit of perfect eating, leading to severe physical, psychological, and social problems. Although not yet formally recognized as an official diagnosis, ON shares etiological factors with traditional eating disorders, such as adverse childhood experiences (CT). This study explores the association between different CT types and ON, a relationship scarsely investigated in the literature. Methods: A sample of 175 participants (age 18-74 years, M = 44.10; SD = 12.85) completed the Italian Düsseldorf Orthorexia Scale (I-DOS) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-SF), assessing Physical Abuse (PA), Emotional Abuse (EA), Sexual Abuse (SA), Physical Neglect (PN), and Emotional Neglect (EN). A backward linear regression analysis investigated the CT-ON association. Results: The regression model explained 7.8% of variance in ON. EA emerged as the strongest predictor. SA showed limited relevance. The negative association with PA likely reflects statistical suppression effects and should be interpreted with caution. PN and EN showed positive but non-significant associations with ON. Conclusions: These findings support the role of CT, particularly EA, in ON development. EA represents the most clinically relevant trauma type, suggesting therapeutic interventions should prioritize addressing emotional abuse. However, the modest variance explained indicates that future studies should investigate additional psychological factors (e.g., perfectionism, cognitive restraint, attachment) to gain comprehensive understanding of ON etiology. This exploratory study provides foundational knowledge for future research on CT's role in ON.
Keywords: Orthorexia nervosa, Adverse childhood experiences, childhood trauma, dieting, Disordered eating behavior, Orthorexia, Emotional abuse and neglect, eating behaviors
Received: 14 Jul 2025; Accepted: 14 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pesavento and Rossi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alessandro Alberto Rossi, a.rossi@unipd.it
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.