Body Appreciation Scale: Evaluation of the Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties among Male and Female Turkish University Students Beden Memnuniyeti Ölçeği: Türk Kadın ve Erkek Üniversite Öğrencilerinde Faktör Yapısı ve Psikometrik Özelliklerinin Değerlendirilmesi

The Body Appreciation Scale (BAS) was developed by Avalos, Tylka & Wood-Barcalow (2005) to determine body appreciation. The present study examined the factor structure of the BAS among Turkish women and men university students. For this purpose, confirmatory factor analysis (competing model analysis) was conducted to evaluate the factor structure the BAS. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis on 741 university student (431 women; 310 men) suggested that a two-factor model with four items deleted represents an adequate description of the data, and best of the factor model proposed. In terms of convergent validity of the scale a negative and significant correlation was found between body appreciation and social appearance anxiety for women and men samples. The Turkish version of the BAS demonstrated adequate internal consistency and composite reliability. Finally, findings from t-test analysis showed that the BAS scores did not differ according to gender.


Introduction
Body image is defined as how an individual perceives his/her body (Davis, 1997). When this concept is examined, a cognitive approach incorporating an individual's perception of both the body and the experiences involving the body, as well as an emotional approach involving appearance, such as whether or not the individual appreciates and is satisfied with his/her body, might be mentioned (Bektaş, 2004). In other words, body image is a multi-dimensional and complex concept incorporating perception, views and feelings of an individual on his/her body (Avalos, Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2005;Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010;Lobera & Rios, 2011;Tiggemann & McCourt, 2013). The concept of body appreciation, which has been begun to be studied in recent years, is a remarkable dimension of body image (Lannantuono & Tylka, 2012).
Body appreciation is defined as the individual's having positive views of his/her body despite his/her current body measures/weight and the deficiencies he/she perceives, being aware and taking note of the needs of his/her body, rejecting the unrealistic ideals presented by the media and protecting and taking care of his/her body with a healthy lifestyle (Avalos, et al., 2005;Halliwell, 2013;Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010;Lannantuono & Tylka, 2012;Ramseyer-Winter & Satinsky, 2014;Satinsky et al., 2012;Swami & Jaafar, 2012;Tiggemann & McCourt, 2013). In other words, body appreciation involves, beyond appreciating his/her body, a cognitive process aimed at developing and maintaining a positive view about his/her body (Avalos, et al, 2005;Halliwell, 2013;Swami & Jaafar, 2012).
The attitude towards one's physical self is observed to have become associated with to what extent an individual fits the ideal beauty and appeal criteria of society in recent years, where being overweight and fatness are observed to cause body dissatisfaction and feelings of being fat in many people who are not even fat. Consequently, it is notable that body appreciation is associated with being thin rather than having a fit body (Bektaş, 2004;Halliwell, 2013;Mele, Cazzato & Urgesi, 2013;Ramseyer-Winter, V. & Satinsky, S, 2014;Swami, Kannan & Furnham, 2012;Taylor, Szpakowska & Swami, 2013). Moreover, an outstanding aspect of body image is that it is closely associated with the individual's wellbeing and mental health (Mele, et. al, 2013). One of the developmental tasks an individual should cope with especially in the adolescence period is accepting his/her body as it is (Kalafat & Kıncal, 2008). Nevertheless, the bodies of men and women presented in the media and reflecting the ideals of society make it difficult especially for young people to complete this task successfully. The primary reason for this is that presentation of excessively thin models as a beauty criterion in the media results in adolescents appreciating their bodies less (Mele, et. al, 2013). As a matter of fact, the study conducted by Tiggemann and McCourt (2013), which was comprised of a sample of women aged from 18 to 75 years, revealed that body appreciation level increased as age level increased. Although the negative body perception that is widely seen among the young is thought to be a problem only of Western societies, it is remarkable that this problem is nowadays encountered all over the world (Swami, Mada & Tovée, 2012). When examining the studies addressing this concept, it is remarkable that the focus is mainly on body image and its consequences (Avalos, et al., 2005;Ramseyer-Winter & Satinsky, 2014;Swami, Stieger, Haubner, & Voracek,2008;Swami & Jaafar, 2012;Tiggemann & McCourt, 2013). For instance, the study conducted by Page (1991) revealed that normal-weight girls who perceive themselves as fat have more feelings of loneliness and hopelessness compared to others. In addition, a positive and significant association was determined between the body image perceived and suicide behavior in girls who are in the adolescence period (Jacobson & Steven, 1997). Moreover, the study conducted by Rinderknecht and Smith (2002) concluded that poor body image and dissatisfaction were associated with depressive symptoms observed in children and adolescents.
The study conducted by Avalos, Tylka and Wood-Barcalow (2005) revealed that body appreciation in female university students was an important predictor of the important concepts to psychological wellbeing such as self-respect, optimism, life satisfaction and proactive coping.
On the other hand, the existence of criticizing messages such as "you'll get fat", "you shouldn't eat dessert" was determined to have a negative and significant association with body appreciation (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010). Besides this, a positive and significant correlation was found between body appreciation and sexual life in women in the study conducted by Satinsky et al., (2012). It was also determined that body appreciation played a protective role against the negative effects of the media (Halliwell, 2013).
When examining the studies conducted on this topic in Turkey, it was observed that they concentrate on body image/body perception. Self-worth (Oktan & Şahin, 2010), selfperception and body-mass index (Örsel, Canbolat, Akdemir & Özbay, 2004), impulsivity in obesity patients (Sarısoy, Atmaca, Ecemiş, Gümüş, & Pazvantoğlu, 2013), psychological distress (Uğurlu & Akın, 2008), and subjective well-being (Oktan, 2012) are some of the variables addressed with the body image/body perception in the studies. Moreover, BAS was adapted into Turkish by Swami, Özgen, Gökçen and Petrides (2015), and the sample of this study consisted of 501 female university students. In the factor analysis conducted in the same study, BAS was concluded to be one-dimensional as in Western societies. Thus, BAS was demonstrated to be associated with the concepts of life satisfaction, self-worth and body mass index .
Although validity and reliability studies of BAS have been conducted on female university students in Turkey, no study has been conducted as to whether it measured the body appreciation of men. In the study, we aimed to reassess the validity and reliability of the BAS of the Turkish sample consisting of female and male university students. Moreover, the factor structure of the scale will be examined by comparing four different models of BAS.

Participants and procedure
Participants included 741 students from the Education Faculty of Uşak University (431 women; 310 men). The departments of students are given in Table 1. This study group was aged between 17-28 years (Mwomen = 19.88, SDwomen = 1.59; Mmen = 20.09, SDmen = 1.61). First, permission was received from Tracy Tylka to adapt the Body Appreciation Scale into Turkish. The original scale was translated into Turkish by two psychological counselors with a good command of English. Then, the translated items and the original version were presented to three academic members from the field of Guidance and Psychological Counseling, and they were requested to determine the items that were and were not appropriate. Later, the necessary corrections were made in line with the suggestions from the academic members, and the resulting version was presented to an expert in the field of Turkish to be examined for its appropriateness to the Turkish language. Necessary adjustments were made according to the feedback received, and validity and reliability studies of BAS were commenced.
Study data were collected in the academic year 2014-2015. Purpose of the study was explained to the participants, and it was stated that their giving candid and sincere answers was important for the results of the study and the answers would be kept confidential. Application of the measurement tools within the scope of the study took about 15-20 minutes.

Demographics
The first section of the questionnaire contains questions about demographic characteristics of the participants such as gender, age, grade level and department of education.

Body Appreciation Scale (BAS)
The scale, which aims to measure to what extent an individual appreciates his/her own body, accepts it as it is and takes care of it despite the ideal body measures presented by the media, was developed by Avalos, Tylka & Wood-Barcalow (2005). Body appreciation increases as the score received from the scale scored according to the 5-point rating scale rises. Item 12 of the test questions the influence of media on body appreciation, and the item is structured separately for women and men. The item regarding influence of the unrealistically slim woman's images presented in the media is answered by women and the item regarding the influence of the unrealistic muscled man images presented in the media is answered by men. In summary, a tool which reflected body appreciation (as one aspect of a positive body image) was developed and evaluated using four independent samples of women attending college. Study 1 (N = 181) gave support to the uni-dimensionality and construct validity of the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS) since it was related as expected to body esteem, body surveillance, body shame, and psychological well-being.] Study 2 (N = 327) cross-validated its unidimensionality. The 13 BAS items served as indicators for the body appreciation latent variable. Results demonstrated that the model provided an acceptable fit to the data, as fit statistics ranged from adequate (CFI = .94, RMSEA = .09) to excellent (SRMR = .05) Study 3 (N = 424) also confirmed the construct validity of the BAS in the following areas: (a) relating as expected to appearance evaluation, body preoccupation, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptomatology, and (b) not relating to impression management. Studies 1 and 3 further showed that the BAS was able to predict unique variance in an individual's psychological well-being above and beyond extant measures of body image. Lastly, study 4 (N = 177) was able to demonstrate that the scores of the BAS remained stable over a three-week period. All of the studies confirmed the internal consistent reliability of its scores. With the support of these studies, Cronbach's alpha internal consistency was calculated to be .94 and the test-retest reliability coefficient was calculated to be . 90.] In the adaptation studies, BAS was observed to have a single-factor structure in Western societies (Avalos, et al., 2005;Lobera & Rios, 2011;, whereas it exhibited a two-factor structure in non-Western societies (Swami and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008;Swami, Campana, Fereirra, Barrett, Harris and Tavares;Swami and Jaafar, 2012;Ng, et al., 2015). The first adaptation study for Turkish people was conducted by Swami et al., 2015 with a sample of 501 female university students. In the factor analysis conducted in the same study, the BAS was concluded to be one-dimensional, as in Western societies.

Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS)
SAAS was developed by Hart et al., (2008) to measure the social appearance anxiety of individuals and was adapted into Turkish by Doğan (2010The adaptation study sample was composed of 340 university students (143 female, 197 male).] The short version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNES) was used to evaluate criterion validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to reveal the factor structure of SAAS. Factor analysis results revealed the one-dimensional structure of the scale as in its original version. For SAAS, the Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient was found to be .93, the test-retest reliability coefficient was found to be .85 and the reliability coefficient calculated by split-half test method was found to be .88. Item-total correlation coefficients of the Turkish version of the scale were concluded to be between .32 and .82. The correlation between SAAS and FNES was demonstrated to be .60.

Findings
Confirmatory factor analysis AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures; Arbuckle, 2009), which is a common confirmatory factor analysis program, was used to determine whether the BAS items confirmed its hypothesized structure in the one factor model (Avalos, et al., 2005); the two factor model 1 (Swami, Campana et al., 2011;Jaafar, 2012 and; the two factor model 2 (Swami & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008) and the two-factor model 3 (Ng, et al., 2015). The ECVI and BIC have become quite popular in structural equation modeling (SEM) and latent variable modeling applications, particularly for the purpose of examining competing models (Raykov & Marcoulides, 2006). Thus, ECVI evaluates how well a model fitted to the calibration sample would perform in comparable validation samples (Schermelleh-Engel, Moosbrugger & Müller, 2003). While comparing different models, the smaller values of ECVI and BIC represent a better fit (Byrne, 2001). As seen in Table 2, two factor model 3 (Ng, et al., 2015) had lower values than the other three. Based on this, it is suggested that the two-factor model 3 (Ng, et al., 2015) represents an adequate description of the data and is the best of the factor models proposed.

Table 2. Goodness of Fit Indices of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Models
The suitability of the CFA results of this study were first evaluated using the ratio of the chi-square value to the degrees of freedom. As shown in Table 2, the ratio of the chi-square to the degrees of freedom was determined to be 6.32 ( (Beauducel & Wittmann, 2009;Bentler, 1990;Çokluk, Şekercioğlu & Büyüköztürk, 2010;Meydan & Şeşen, 2011;Şimşek, 2007). An evaluation of the goodness of fit indices indicated that for women they varied among the GFI=.92, CFI=.93 and RMSEA=.11 values and for men the GFI=.91, CFI=.93 and RMSEA=.11 values for two-factor model 3 (Ng, et al., 2015). The correlation between the two factors was found to be r=. 47 for the female sample and r= .33 for the male population. These correlations showed that there is a moderate and significant relationship between the two factors of BAS for women and men samples (See Table  3). According to the two-factor model 3 (Ng, et al., 2015), the standardized factor loadings of the BAS items were between λ= 0.52 and λ= 0.86 for the women sample and λ= 0.54 and λ= 0.90 for the men sample. In the model proposed all of the items were significant (p< .001) (See Table  4).

Convergent validity
The BAS (two-factor model 3) showed a negative and significant correlation (p < .001) with Social Appearance Anxiety. Among women, General Body Appreciation and Body Image Investment were significantly and negatively correlated with SAAS (General Body Appreciation r = -.41; Body Image Investment r = -.22). Among men, General Body Appreciation and Body Image Investment were significantly and negatively correlated with SAAS (General Body Appreciation r = -.37; Body Image Investment r = -.26).

Internal consistency reliability
The reliability of the Body Appreciation Scale was evaluated with Cronbach's alpha internal consistency (α) and composite reliability (CRC) for the BAS two factor model. Internal consistency coefficients were very good for the General Body Appreciation factor but fell below the acceptable cut-off for the Body Image Investment factor for the two groups (See Table 5).

Gender difference
An independent t-test showed that the difference between the BAS scores for women and men was not statistically significant for two factors. (General Body Appreciation t (1.005) = 0.315, p > 0.05 , Body Image Investment t (1.298) = 0.195, p > 0.05).

Discussion and Conclusion
This study aimed to examine the factorial validity of a Turkish version of the BAS (Avalos, et al., 2005) among a sample consisting of Turkish male and female university students. The studies into BAS have revealed a single factor structure in Western society (Avalos, et al., 2005;, Lobera & Rios, 2011Swami, Özgen, Gökçen & Petrides, 2015) whereas BAS has shown a two-factor structure in non-Western samples (Swami and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008;Swami et al., 2011 and. In this context, confirmatory factor analyses (competing model analysis) were performed to determine the factor structure of the scale. The results showed that two-factor model 3 as suggested by Ng, et al., 2015 (four items deleted) for the Hong Kong sample was the most appropriate for the sample of this study. Also, results showed that fitness values were at an acceptable level for both female and male samples in this two-factor model. These results of the study differ from previous research conducted by Swami, Özgen, Gökçen & Petrides, 2015. In that study, BAS was concluded to be one-dimensional as in Western societies. The concept of body appreciation is not the same in every culture in terms of the conceptual and factorial (Ng, et al., 2015;Swami & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008). Hong-Kong has a mixed cultural structure with post-industrial living conditions and traditional family structures seen together (Ng, et al., 2015). There is a similar cultural structure to be seen in Turkey. Despite the impact of globalization, modernization and social media and Turkey starting to import the social habits of Western societies the traditional family structure still maintains. In these mixed cultural settings women may feel a conflict between Western concepts of individual control over the body and traditional Eastern shame of the body (Swami & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008). Therefore it is recommended to re-examine the factor structure of BAS with different samples in the same country.
Values of the correlation between the scores received from BAS and SAAS were calculated to test the convergent validity of the scale for women and men. Significant correlation values were obtained for body appreciation and social appearance anxiety for women and men in the two-factor model 3. Also, linear regression was conducted to examine whether BAS predicts social appearance anxiety. The result of each regression model was significant for both male and female samples. Social appearance anxiety may be interpreted as a result of the negative body image of an individual related to his/her body and appearance (Doğan, 2010). Having a negative body appearance was demonstrated to have a negative effect on the wellbeing and mental health of an individual (Mele, et. al, 2013). Consequently, the negative correlation of body appreciation, which is an important sub-dimension of body image, with social appearance anxiety that negatively affects the psychological state of the individual, is an expected result. In general, these results concerning validity show that the scale is valid. In this research, other studies conducted on the validity of BAS concluded that Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability coefficients are at an acceptable level. Other studies conducted on the validity of BAS concluded that Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability coefficients are at a good level for the General Body Appreciation factor but fell below the acceptable cut-off for the Body Image Investment factor. These results were similar to the Hong Kong (Ng, et al., 2015) and Malaysian (Swami & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008) samples. It is recommended that this second factor be reexamined.
Another result of the study is that there is no difference between the body appreciation of women and men among university students. The study conducted by Tylka (2013) demonstrated that men received higher scores in the items measuring the attitude towards the body, whereas scores of both groups were similar with respect to the behaviors towards the body. On the other hand, there are study findings in the literature showing that body appreciation of men is higher compared to women (Lobera & Rios, 2011;Swami & Jaafar, 2012). In Turkey, the common concern of female and male education faculty students is to be appointed as teachers (Doğan & Çoban, 2009;Şahin, 2011) This situation may have caused students to focus less on issues related to the body. Therefore, in future studies the body appreciation of the different faculties' women and men students can be compared. Hence, there is need for new study findings which support or oppose this finding of the study.