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Novel Assessment of Own and Ideal Body Perception Among Women: Validation of the Computer-Generated Figure Rating Scale

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Abstract

Body size estimation and dissatisfaction can be assessed with figure rating scales (FRS). These scales represent a continuum of silhouettes where participants have to select the figure that best fits their perceived and/or ideal body. Nevertheless, current FRS have limitations (e.g., small number of figures). We therefore developed a novel FRS—the Computer-Generated Figure Rating Scale (CGFRS)—that consists of a broad continuum of 27 computer-generated women’s bodies. It was validated among a sample of 113 women from the community and its discriminant power was examined in a sample of 20 women diagnosed with eating disorders (compared to age-matched control women). The CGFRS presented satisfactory psychometric properties (sensitivity, test–retest reliability, content, construct and convergent validities). Moreover, the scale dissociated women with eating disorders from control women: the former group overestimated their body size more and had higher body dissatisfaction.

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Notes

  1. The Mann–Whitney U test was performed because the normality assumption was violated.

  2. The “emaciation/undernourishment” category refers to bodies with a BMI < 17.00 kg/m2 (“moderate/severe underweight”) and the “underweight” category refers to bodies with a BMI between 17.00 and 18.49 kg/m2 (“mild underweight”).

  3. Three participants did not complete the second session because of personal unexpected circumstances. They could thus be considered as experimental mortality.

  4. The classes of bodies differed significantly in plausibility ratings (Friedman’s nonparametric analysis of variance [ANOVA]: χ2(4) = 315.41, p < 0.001, Kendall’s W = 0.698). Post hoc tests were performed with a conventional significance level adjusted for multiple comparisons (Bonferroni correction: p = .05/10 = 0.005). The results revealed that, except for the comparisons between the “mild underweight” and “overweight” BMI classes (z = 2.40, p = 0.017) and “normal range” and “overweight” classes (z = 2.69, p = 0.007), which did not differ (i.e., p-values superior to the adjusted level of significance), all other differences were significant (all zs ≥ 6.57, all ps < 0.001, all abs(r) ≥ 0.618).

  5. All the participants who incorrectly classified Body #9 did not choose the closest category (see Fig. 3b): Body #9 has an estimated BMI of 17.28 kg/m2 (i.e., “underweight” classification category), but 58.41% of the participants classified it in the “normal weight” category (from a BMI of 18.50 kg/m2), while the closest classification category corresponded to “emaciation/undernourishment” (from a BMI of 16.99 kg/m2). This result is discussed later.

  6. The classes of bodies differed significantly in classification percentages (Friedman’s ANOVA: χ2(4) = 180.16, p < 0.001, Kendall’s W = 0.399). More specifically, except for the comparisons (post hoc tests adjusted for multiple comparisons with the Bonferroni correction: p = .05/10 = 0.005) between the “severe/moderate underweight” and “overweight” BMI classes (z = 1.34, p = 0.181), the “severe/moderate underweight” and “obesity” classes (z = 0.508, p = 0.612), and the “overweight” and “obesity” classes (z = 2.24, p = 0.025), which did not differ (i.e., p values superior to the adjusted level of significance), all other differences were significant (all zs ≥ 4.91, all ps < 0.001, all abs(r) ≥ 0.462).

  7. Given that all ICCs smaller than 1.00 denote a proportion of a measurement’s variability (Shrout 1998; Weir 2005), paired samples t tests were performed on the perceived and ideal BMIs to better understand this variability. Neither the average perceived BMI (mean diff. = 0.34, t(109) = 1.44, p = 0.152) nor the average ideal BMI (mean diff. = −0.17, t(109) = −1.18, p = 0.242) differed between the two sessions, meaning that although some participants did not select the same body, the differences were not systematic.

  8. AN-R (N = 10) and EDNOS (N = 10) patients were compared by performing Mann–Whitney U tests. As it could be expected, AN-R patients presented a significantly lower BMI (M = 15.32, SD = 1.28) than EDNOS patients did (M = 18.97, SD = 1.26; z = 3.59, p < 0.001, abs(r) = 0.803) and, consequently, chose a lower perceived BMI (M = 18.38, SD = 4.51) than EDNOS patients did (M = 24.06, SD = 3.95; z = 2.57, p = 0.010, abs(r) = 0.575). Nevertheless, these patient groups differed neither on the perception/estimation bias score; the ideal BMI chosen; the BD assessed with the BSQ, the EDI, or the CGFRS; or the DT score (all zs ≤ 1.32, all ps ≥ 0.05). Moreover, they differed neither on their general classification performance, nor on their classification performances for the different classes of bodies (all zs ≤ 1.02, all ps ≥ 0.05). Concerning the plausibility ratings, AN-R patients (M = 6.72, SD = 1.35) evaluated the general set of bodies as being less plausible than EDNOS patients did (M = 8.26, SD = 0.77; z = 2.68, p = 0.007, abs(r) = 0.600), but these patient groups did not differ on their ratings for the different classes of bodies (all zs ≤ 2.49, all ps ≥ 0.01 corresponding to the adjusted significance level).

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Bianca Boeri, Anne-Sophie Boulin, Marion Hischier, Delphine Lambelet, and Charlène Moser for their help with the data collection.

Funding

At the time of data collection, Delphine Grynberg was funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S-FNRS) and its associated fund (FRESH; Grant number: T602413).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Psychopathology and Neuropsychology Unit, Psychology Department, FPSE, University of Geneva, Boulevard du Pont d’Arve 40, 1205, Geneva, Switzerland

    Joanna Myriam Moussally & Martial Van der Linden

  2. Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Joanna Myriam Moussally & Martial Van der Linden

  3. UMR 9193-SCALab-Cognitive Sciences and Affective Sciences, University of Lille, Lille, France

    Delphine Grynberg

  4. Eating Disorders Unit 2, “La Ramée” Psychiatric Clinic, Brussels, Belgium

    Serge Goffinet

  5. Anorexia/Bulimia Program, “Le Domaine” Psychiatric Hospital, Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium

    Yves Simon

  6. Cognitive Psychopathology Unit, Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Martial Van der Linden

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  1. Joanna Myriam Moussally
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Correspondence to Joanna Myriam Moussally.

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Joanna Myriam Moussally, Delphine Grynberg, Serge Goffinet, Yves Simon, and Martial Van der Linden declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals-Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Moussally, J.M., Grynberg, D., Goffinet, S. et al. Novel Assessment of Own and Ideal Body Perception Among Women: Validation of the Computer-Generated Figure Rating Scale. Cogn Ther Res 41, 632–644 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9827-4

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