Body appreciation around the world: Measurement invariance of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age

Sample characteristics for quantitative analyses in Body Image: Issues of generalisability

“…As argued above, given the prevalence of student sampling (Table 1), and given that body image varies as a function of age (e.g., Tiggemann, 2015), though its effect might be small (e.g., Swami et al, 2023), age is a relevant characteristic to our study as well. In the context of body image, it is important to also consider other factors, beyond sociodemographic variables, which are likely to influence representativeness.…”

“…The broader conclusion following Henrich et al (2010) is that whenever we study a phenomenon, we cannot automatically assume that any findings, or even the tools used to study the phenomenon, will directly translate from one society to the next. This is recognised in the field of body image research with studies attempting to establish measurement invariance for some measures across cultures (e.g., Swami et al, 2023).…”

“…Measurement equivalence testing is often based on student samples (e.g., in personality: Rammstedt, Goldberg, & Borg, 2010). This could also apply to measures on body image (e.g., da Silva et al, 2020) and comparatively little work examines broader population samples (e.g., Swami et al, 2023;Tanaka, Tayama, & Arimura, 2015). Inferences based on student populations may not extend to general populations (e.g., Hanel & Vione, 2016;Wild, Kyröläinen, & Kuperman, 2022).…”

“…Although BMI is an imperfect measure, which might not be as relevant as experienced weight stigma when studying body image, it is a useful tool to study the representativeness of samples in the context of this study. Indeed, although considerable progress has been made in measuring body attitudes or body stigma (e.g., Swami et al, 2023), there are currently no normed measurement instruments which have been validated in representative samples across the world. In sum, though imperfect, we can examine whether the samples collected in research systematically differ from population-level distributions in BMI when reported.…”

“…In a similar way as we have large scale research programmes in physics, certain research questions would benefit from a similar coordinated effort. A recent paper by Swami et al (2023), published in Body Image could serve as an example. A first port of call could be gathering representative samples across a range of cultures on, for example, weight stigma so that these can be normed.…”