ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Substance Use Disorders and Behavioral Addictions
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1571144
This article is part of the Research TopicEating Disorders as a Challenge for Public Health: From Health Policies to Evidence-based TreatmentsView all 5 articles
Psychometric Evaluation of the Chinese Body Shape Questionnaire Short Form for Assessing Eating Disorder Symptoms among University Students
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Postdoctoral, School of Marxism, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China
- 2College of Educational Science, Guangdong Preschool Normal College in Maoming, Maoming, China
- 3Office of Social Science & Humanities, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China
- 4Department of Physical Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, North Gyeongsang, Republic of Korea
- 5Fuyang Normal University, Fuyang, Anhui Province, China
- 6Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
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Background: Body shape concerns have emerged in eating disorders as a public health issue among adolescents worldwide. The psychometric properties of the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) remain underexplored in Chinese university students with eating disorder symptoms. This study aims to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the BSQ in the context of eating disorder symptoms among Chinese university students. Methods: A stratified random sample of 858 Chinese university students (age, mean ± SD = 19.91 ± 1.18) participated in the study. The surveys comprised the BSQ and the EDE-QS to assess body shape concerns with eating disorder symptoms. Eating disorder symptoms were defined as scores equal to or greater than 15 on the EDE-QS. Results: The Chinese version of the BSQ demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.92) and robust construct validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the original single-factor structure with satisfactory fit indices (Average Variance Extracted = 0.58, Composite Reliability = 0.92, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin = 0.92, Normed Fit Index = 0.92, Goodness of Fit Index = 0.91, Comparative Fit Index = 0.93, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.09, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual = 0.03, Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.96). The BSQ showed significant correlations with the EDE-QS (p < 0.01).The Chinese version of the BSQ demonstrates strong psychometric properties among university students with eating disorder symptoms, supporting its use as a reliable and valid assessment tool in the Chinese population.
Keywords: Body Shape Questionnaire, eating disorder symptoms, Body shape concerns, psychometric evaluation, reliability and validity, university students
Received: 05 Feb 2025; Accepted: 13 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gao, Zhao, Liu, Wang, Zhang and Yuan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Han Yuan, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
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