Obesity prejudices and orthorectic behaviors of employees in A private Hospital

The aim of this study is to determine obesity prejudices and orthorectic behaviors of employees serving in a private hospital. The datawere obtained from 511 of 640 employees of a private hospital in Adana province with participants whose age range were 18-70, and who agreed to participate voluntarily in the study. The study was conduct between the dates 01.06.2017 and 01.08.2017. 62.4%(319) of the participants were women while 37.6% (192) were men. In the study, the data were obtained via a questionnaire containing information about the socio-demographic characteristics, eating habits, healthy lifestyle behaviors, physical activity levels, body mass indexes (BMI), healthy diet obsession and obesity attitudes of the employees. To identify participants' healthy diet obsession ORTO-11 scale, and to identify their attitudes towards obesity the GAMS-27 Obesity Prejudice Scale were used. The average age of participants is 33,2±8,96 years. While 48.5% of the participants are health personnel, 51.5% are not. The average body mass index (BMI) of women is 23,5 ±3,97 kg/m2, and men's is 26,0±3,11kg/m2. The mean score of obesity prejudice scale (PD) was 73.1 ± 10.73 for women and 73.6 ± 11.31 for men. The ORTO-11 mean score was 25.7 ± 4.84 for women and 26.6 ± 5.50 for men. Obesity prejudice scores of men (40,6%) working as health personnel were found to be higher (p<0,05). There were no significant relationship between obesity prejudice and orthorectic behaviors for women working as a health personnel (p>0,05). Orthorectic tendincies of women who thought they were eating healthy (44.5%), who attempted to lose weight in the last year (44.5%) and who declared prejudice towards obese people (8.8%) were found higher (p<0,05). In this study, it was found that women who stated that they were not prejudiced towards obese individuals (70.5%) were more prejudiced than women who declared prejudice (8.8%) (p<0,05). As a result, there was no significant relationship between obesity prejudice and orthorectic behaviors (p>0,05). The increase in the studies on obesity prejudice and orthorectic behaviors will contribute to the increase in awareness about healthy eating obsession and prejudice towards obese individuals. Key Words: OrthorexiaNervosa, Obesity Prejudice, Healthy Eating Obsession, Eating Disorders, Healthy Nutrition