Purpose: This study aimed at obtaining a French version of the DOS (F-DOS) and evaluating its psychometric properties in a sample of university students, then assessing the prevalence of orthorexic eating behavior among the participants.
Methods: The F-DOS was obtained using back translation, and then administered to 3235 university students (10.32% men, 89.67% women) with a mean age of 21.13 (SD = 2.23). The Eating Habits Questionnaire and Eating Attitudes Test were used to assess convergent and divergent validities, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to explore the factor structure.
Results: Ordinal ⍵ of F-DOS was 0.87, indicating very good internal consistency. F-DOS and EHQ total scores were strongly correlated (rs = 0.74, p < 0.001), indicating very good construct validity. Factor analysis revealed a well-fitted one-factor model. Regarding Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) prevalence, according to DOS cut-off score, 3.28% of participants could be considered having ON, while an additional 11.31% could be at risk of developing ON.
Conclusions: The F-DOS appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess orthorexic eating behavior. ON prevalence in college students appeared similar to Germany and lower than in the US.
Level of evidence: Descriptive (cross-sectional) study, Level V.
Keywords: Anorexia nervosa; Eating disorders; Orthorexic behaviors.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG part of Springer Nature.