Internal validity, dimensionality and performance of the Body Shape Questionnaire in a group of Brazilian college students

Objective: To adapt the Body Shape Questionnaire for use in the Brazilian population; to study the internal validity and the dimensionality of the scale when used in a non-clinical Brazilian population. Method: A cross-sectional study was accomplished comprising 164 students in the first 3 years of the School of Medicine conveniently selected at the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo. The 34-item Body Shape Questionnaire version and a questionnaire to assess demographic and anthropometric information were used. Results: The internal consistency of the Body Shape Questionnaire measured by Cronbach's alpha was 0.97, indicating that the questions of the scale converge to the same construct. The factor analysis of the scale resulted in a four-dimension solution accounting for 66.4% of the total data variability. Regarding the finalscore of Body Shape Questionnaire, the mean score was 58.7 +/- 25.1 for men and 89.7 +/- 31.3 for women. Discussion: We found statistically significant gender differences in the means of the Body Shape Questionnaire scores. Women showed higher dissatisfaction than did men as to their appearance as measured by the Body Shape Questionnaire. The adapted version of the scale seems to maintain the characteristics of the original scale.