Development of body modification and excessive exercise scales for adolescents

Abstract

The present study was designed to develop a Body Modification Scale (BMS) to measure body change among adolescents and to modify an Excessive Exercise Scale (EES) into a shorter form for adolescents. Two hundred and twenty-one girls and 192 boys from Grades 7 to 10 completed the BMS and the EES. Factor analysis revealed three identical factors for the BMS for girls and boys: weight loss, weight gain, and muscle mass. Two identical factors for girls and boys were also revealed for the EES. Both factor structures were further validated on a separate sample of 286 adolescents (140 girls, 146 boys). The BMS and EES demonstrated excellent reliability (alpha >. 86) and high test-retest reliability (alpha >. 82) over 1 month. Good concurrent validity was also found for the weight loss factor of the BMS. These findings demonstrate the utility of these two scales for use with adolescents.