Natural nutrition trends in women, orthorexia nervosa and food neophobia

According to caregiver role and aesthetic duties, women are main target profile of nutrition sector with a positioning of ideal slim beauty. This study was conducted to explore women's role in nutrition and their approach to healthy eating, to understand how their eating behavior is affected by natural food trends, and to learn what their main sources of information about nutrition are. This is a cross-sectional qualitative study that realized with Focus Group method of 3 groups and 1 in-depth interview that was held in March 2019 with a total of 18 women. Majority of participants were working women with university degree and they are mainly in middle age, married, and all based in Istanbul. Discourse analysis was used to identify main broads and sub-categories that mentioned in the interviews. Transcribed text analyzed through reading, classification, interpretation and structuring stages by using of MS Excel program. Also, NVivo is used to create word cloud of all interviews. As a result, majority of participants try to eat healthy in general. They believe that the healthiest food is home cooked meal; and they are looking for more natural ways of nutrition in an environment with concerns on what to eat that caused by information and misinformation on media and internet. In these conditions, our research shows that while local foods are preferred, organic foods are controversial. Packed foods and sugar added foods are generally avoided due to their health damaging effects. Gluten and bread have rejection by women over 50 years old or pregnant. Majority of participants have diet experiences and they feel guilty when breaking diet. Finally, even we don't have any diagnosis, this research raises some symptoms of Orthorexia Nervosa; but no meaningful results were obtained regarding the Food Neophobia. Furthermore, to get more specific results, this study may be expanded to a quantitative research with wider sample.