The structure of the perceived sociocultural influences on body image and body change questionnaire

This article is concerned with the development and evaluation of the Percei ved Sociocultural Influences on Body Image and Body Change Questionnaire. T he scale was designed to assess the perceived nature of feedback received f rom mother, father, best male friend, and best female friend to gain weight , lose weight, and increase muscle tone. The perceived feedback from the me dia on each of these areas also was assessed. Exploratory factor analysis w as conducted with 240 adolescent boys (mean age = 13.83 years) and 204 adol escent girls (mean age = 13.70 years). A 3-factor structure was found for t he 4 scales that related to perceived feedback from mother, father, best ma le friend, and best female Friend. Feedback on muscle tone loaded with both weight loss and weight gain. The three factors related to (a) general feed back; (b) encourage, tease, and modeling to gain weight and increase muscle tone, and (c) encourage, tease, and modeling to lose weight and increase m uscle tone. The factor structure and the items that made up these factors w ere the same for both boys and girls for each of the 4 scales. The Perceive d Media Influences Scale formed 3 factors for girls. These factors related to gaining weight, losing weight, and increasing muscle tone. For boys, the same 9 items formed a single factor. The same items were retained for boys and girls. A confirmatory factor analysis with 822 adolescents (382 boys, mean age = 14.02 years; 440 girls, mean age = 13.82 years) confirmed the pr eviously described factor structure. These results demonstrate that the Per ceived Sociocultural Influences on Body Image and Body Change Questionnaire is able to assess body image and body change strategies that are relevant for both boys and girls.