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Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Female Muscularity Scale among Chinese young women

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Abstract

Purpose

The Female Muscularity Scale (FMS) was specifically developed for assessing drive for muscularity in women. The current study aimed to translate the FMS into Chinese (FMS-C) and examine its psychometric properties among Chinese young women.

Methods

Based on standard procedures, the FMS was translated into Chinese. By using the psych and lavaan packages on R version 4.0.3, the current study examined the factor structure, reliability, and convergent and incremental validity of the FMS-C with a sample of 517 Chinese women college students (\({M}_{age}\)= 18.86 years).

Results

Results showed a 2-factor structure including attitudes and behaviors of the FMS-C. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α) was .91 for the total FMS-C scale and .89 and .88 for the Attitudes and Behaviors subscales, respectively. Results also revealed evidence for good convergent and incremental validity of the FMS-C.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that the FMS-C can be a useful tool to measure both attitudes and behaviors underlying drive for muscularity and muscle tone concerns among Chinese young women.

Level of evidence

Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

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Availability of data and material

The dataset used during the current study is available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Funding

The study was supported by the Presidential Fund of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, to Jinbo He (Grant Number: PF.01.001428).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518172, Guangdong, China

    Chanyuan Tang & Jinbo He

  2. Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

    Wesley R. Barnhart

  3. The Department of Applied Psychology, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, 410208, Hunan, China

    Bin Zhang

Authors
  1. Chanyuan Tang
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  2. Wesley R. Barnhart
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  3. Bin Zhang
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  4. Jinbo He
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Contributions

CT: analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript. WRB: reviewed and revised the manuscript. BZ: collected data and reviewed and revised the manuscript. JH: designed the study and reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bin Zhang or Jinbo He.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the research committee of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

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Informed consent was obtained from all the surveyed participants.

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Tang, C., Barnhart, W.R., Zhang, B. et al. Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Female Muscularity Scale among Chinese young women. Eat Weight Disord 27, 3187–3196 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-022-01448-w

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