Tag: BAT: Body Attitudes Test

What is the Body Attitudes Test?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The Body Attitudes Test (BAT) was developed by Probst et al. in 1995. It was designed for the assessment of multiple eating disorders in women.

The BAT measures an individual’s subjective body experience and attitudes towards one’s own body. It is a questionnaire composed of twenty items which yields four different factors that evaluate the internal view of the patient’s own body.

Refer to Body Attitudes Questionnaire.

Purpose

The BAT is used to evaluate self-reported outlooks women with eating disorders have pre-, during, and post-treatment. It has been proven to highlight the psychological changes experienced throughout the rehabilitation process and is a useful way to gauge adherence and success of treatment.

This test also has the ability to differentiated between clinical and non-clinical subjects and between anorexics and bulimics. Studies have shown that patients suffering from restrictive anorexia have lower BAT scores, whereas patients with bulimia nervosa score higher.

Brief History

Michel Probst and colleagues began creating the BAT in 1984 and eventually published this questionnaire in 1995, with the goal of finding a new tool to evaluate how women suffering from eating disorders view their own body. The BAT was originally written in Dutch and then translated to many languages. This test was administered widely to both patients and control subjects, including women already diagnosed with eating disorders, women participating in Weight Watchers, and healthy women with no eating disorder diagnosis. To ensure the validity of this test, Probst and colleagues compared the results of the BAT to other tools already in use to evaluate women with eating disorders. These other evaluations include the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT).

Test

The BAT is a self-reported questionnaire consisting of 20 questions. Patients are asked to score each statement 0-5, 0 meaning they do not relate to the statement at all, and 5 meaning the statement frequently describes their sentiment. The following are examples of questions asked in the assessment:

  • I feel displeased when comparing my body to others.
  • I do not recognise my body as my own.
  • My body is too wide.
  • I am pleased with my body shape.
  • I feel the need to lose weight.
  • I see my breasts as too big.
  • I feel the need to conceal my body in looser clothing.
  • I avoid my reflection because it upsets me.
  • I do not struggle with relaxing.
  • I feel like every aspect of my body is broad.
  • My body negatively weighs on me.
  • There is a dissonance between my body and I.
  • At times, I feel like my body is swollen.
  • I feel threatened by my physical appearance.
  • I take great pride in my body size.
  • I feel like I look pregnant.
  • I always feel very tense.
  • I tend to be jealous of other people’s looks.
  • Aspects of my physical appearance scare me.
  • I often scrutinise my own reflection.

The answers to these questions are then analysed and provide information regarding four factors that evaluate the patient’s subjective view on their body:

  • Negative appreciation of body size.
  • Lack of familiarity with one’s own body.
  • General body dissatisfaction.
  • Rest factor.

What is the Body Attitudes Questionnaire?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) is a 44 item self-report questionnaire divided into six subscales that measures a woman’s attitude towards their own body.

The BAQ is used in the assessment of eating disorders. It was devised by D.I. Ben-Tovim and M.K. Walker in 1991.

Refer to Body Attitudes Test.

Sub-Scales

The six subscales measured by the BAQ are:

  1. Overall fatness.
  2. Self disparagement.
  3. Strength.
  4. Salience of weight.
  5. Feelings of attractiveness.
  6. Consciousness of lower body fat.

Foreign-Language Versions

Portuguese Version

The BAQ was the first body attitudes scale to be translated into Portuguese. The validity of the Portuguese language version was proven in a test conducted on a cohort of Brazilian women who speak Portuguese as their native language. The test-retest reliability was 0.57 and 0.85 after a one-month interval. The test was conducted by Scagliusi et al.

Japanese Version

The BAQ was translated into Japanese and tested on 68 males and 139 females in Japan and 68 Japanese males living in Australia (Kagawa et al.) The scores were assessed against 72 Australian men using the English-language version as well as scores from previous female Australian participants. There was a significant difference between the Japanese and Australian groups (p,0.05). The BAQ was deemed adequate for use in both Japanese males and females.

What is the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale?

Published on by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

The Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS) is a 22 item self-report questionnaire that assesses the presence of three eating disorders; anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

Outline

It was adapted by Stice et al. in 2000 from the validated structured psychiatric interview: The Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) and the eating disorder module of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID)16.

A study was made to complete the EDDS research; the process to create and finalise the questionnaire. A group of people eating-disorders researchers take a looked at a preliminary version of the questionnaire and made a final decision of which questions to put on the final questionnaire with the 22 questions.

  • The questionnaire starts off with questions about the patient’s feelings towards his/her physical appearance, specifically the weight.
  • Then, it proceeds to questions about having episodes of eating with a loss of control and how he/she felt after overeating.
  • The questions afterwards are about the patient’s experience on fasting, making themselves vomit and using laxatives to prevent weight gain.
  • It will then ask you how much body image problems impact your relationship and friendship with others.
  • Lastly, the questionnaire asks for the patient’s current weight, height, sex and age.

The EDDS questionnaire is used for researchers to provide some cures for the three types of eating disorder. It is more efficient than having an interview because it’s easier to get a result, from a group of participants, with the 22-questions questionnaire. Having to interview each participant is a harder and more time-consuming way to get a result. This questionnaire is also useful for primary care/ clinical purposes to identify patients with eating pathology.

In follow up studies of the reliability and validity of the EDDS, it was shown to be sufficiently sensitive to detect the effects of eating disorders prevention programs, response to such programs and the future onset of eating disorder pathology and depression. The EDDS shows both full and subthreshold diagnoses for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. EDDS is a continuous eating disorder symptom composite score. The PhenX Toolkit uses the EDDS for as an Eating Disorders Screener protocol.

Refer to:

What is the Body Attitudes Questionnaire?

Published on by Andrew Marshall2 Comments

Introduction

The Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) is a 44 item self-report questionnaire divided into six subscales that measures a woman’s attitude towards their own body.

The BAQ is used in the assessment of eating disorders. It was devised by D.I. Ben-Tovim and M.K. Walker in 1991.

Refer to the Body Attitudes Test.

Sub-Scales

The six subscales measured by the BAQ are:

  • Overall fatness.
  • Self disparagement.
  • Strength.
  • Salience of weight.
  • Feelings of attractiveness.
  • Consciousness of lower body fat.
  • Foreign-language versions.

Portuguese Version

The BAQ was the first body attitudes scale to be translated into Portuguese. The validity of the Portuguese language version was proven in a test conducted on a cohort of Brazilian women who speak Portuguese as their native language. The test-retest reliability was 0.57 and 0.85 after a one-month interval. The test was conducted by Scagliusi et al.

Japanese Version

The BAQ was translated into Japanese and tested on 68 males and 139 females in Japan and 68 Japanese males living in Australia (Kagawa et al.) The scores were assessed against 72 Australian men using the English-language version as well as scores from previous female Australian participants. There was a significant difference between the Japanese and Australian groups (p,0.05). The BAQ was deemed adequate for use in both Japanese males and females.

References

Ben-Tovim, D.I. & Walker, M.K. (1991) The development of the Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ), a new measure of women’s attitudes towards their own bodies. Psychological Medicine. 21(3), pp.775-784. doi:10.1017/S0033291700022406.

Kagawa, M., Uchida, H., Uenishi, K., Binns, C.W. & Hills, A.P. (2007) Applicability of the Ben-Tovim Walker Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) and the Attention to Body Shape scale (ABS) in Japanese males and females (PDF). Eating Behaviors. 8(3), pp.2772-284. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2006.11.002.

Scagliusi, F.B., Polacow, V.O., Cordas, T.A., Coelho, D., Alvarenga, M., Philippi, S.T. & Lancha Jr, A.H. (2005) Psychometric testing and applications of the Body Attitudes Questionnaire translated into Portuguese. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 101(1), pp.25-41. doi:10.2466/PMS.101.5.25-41.

What is the Body Attitudes Test?

Published on by Andrew Marshall2 Comments

Introduction

The Body Attitudes Test (BAT) was developed by Probst and colleagues in 1995.

Refer to Body Attitudes Questionnaire.

Background

It was designed for the assessment of eating disorders in women. The BAT measures an individual’s subjective body experience and attitudes towards one’s own body it differentiates between clinical and non-clinical subjects and between anorexics and bulimics. It is composed of twenty items which yield four factors:

  1. Negative appreciation of body size.
  2. Lack of familiarity with one’s own body.
  3. General body dissatisfaction.
  4. A rest factor.

Reference

Probst, M. Van Coppenolle, H. & Vandereycken, W. (1997) Further experience with the Body Attitude Test. Eating and Weight Disorders. 2(2), pp.100104. doi:10.1007/bf03339956.