Delimiting the Measurement for the Internalization of Body Ideals From the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire and Examining its Invariance Across Sex

Abstract

The objective of this study was to validate an instrument that allows us to overcome some of the limitations found in existing tools aimed at assessing the internalization of sociocultural body ideals. To do this, we used a sample group of 1,130 students aged between 10 and 14 years. The psychometric properties of the Scale for the Internalization of Sociocultural Body Ideals (SISBI) were examined using different analyses. The results supported the eight-item structure: four items for thin body ideal internalization and four items for thin body muscular/athletic internalization. The structure showed invariance to sex and achieved acceptable internal consistency and temporal stability indexes. Furthermore, the results showed that, after controlling for sex and BMI effects, the internalization of the thin body ideal positively predicted social-physique anxiety in a statistically significant way. The results of this study provide evidence of SISBI reliability and validity in Spanish preadolescents.