Development of the Children's Body Satisfaction Scale: Its psychometric characteristics for children

Body satisfaction is a key factor in children's healthy eating and self-perception. This study aims to develop The Children's Body Satisfaction Scale to measure body image satisfaction in children, which consists of three sub-dimensions ('acceptance of physical appearance', 'weight satisfaction' and 'flexibility in the importance attached to the ideal').

The study was conducted with 473 primary school students in Ankara in 2021. The mean age of the participants, of whom 44.6% were female and 55.4% were male, was 9.38 ± 0.65 (between 8 and 10 years old). Socio-demographic Information Form, the Children's Body Satisfaction Scale (CBSS), the Children's Body Image Scale and 'physical appearance' and 'general self-esteem' sub-scales of the Self-Perception Profile for Children were used for the data collection.

CBSS consists of 3 sub-dimensions and 18 items. Calculated to be 0.84, the Cronbach alpha coefficient of the scale was found to be quite high. The item-total correlations were determined to be higher than 0.20 for all the items in the scale, and the t values of the comparison of the lower and upper 27% of all the items were significant. A high level (r > 0.70) positive and significant relationship was found in the test-retest reliability of the CBSS total and sub-dimension scores. A positive and significant relationship was found between CBSS total and general self-esteem and body size satisfaction.

The validity and reliability analyses of the CBSS applied as part of the study show that it has strong psychometric properties in determining the level of body image satisfaction for children aged between 8 and 10. The sub-dimensions of CBSS provide a comprehensive measure to understand body dissatisfaction in children and to test the effectiveness of intervention programmes.