Hungarian adaptation of the obesity beliefs scale

Abstract

Background. Cognitive approaches to obesity treatment assume that weight loss is more likely to occur if individuals perceive many benefits and few costs. Obesity Beliefs Scale (OBS; SWIFT, GLAZEBROOK, NOVAK, & ANNESS, 2007) assesses beliefs about the health and non-health costs and benefits associated with obesity and the costs associated with weight control. Objectives. The main goals of the study were to adapt the OBS into Hungarian, to conduct the psychometric analysis of the instrument, to examine the potential determinants of obesity related beliefs, and to explore the potential role of these beliefs regarding intentional weight loss. Methods. Study design was a prospective, questionnaire-based research. The time interval was six months that contained two data administration. Study sample consisted of the participants of the III. "Together-Easier" workplace lifestyle-changing team competition (N=377; 231 women and 146 men). The mean age was 38.8 years (SD=9.58 years, range 22-60 years). The mean BMI at the beginning was 27.0 kg/m2 (SD=5.52 kg/m2, range 18.1-60.6 kg/m2). Sixty-one percent of the participants were overweight or obese (BMI?25.0 kg/m2). Measures were objective measures of anthropometric data (body weight, body height, body fat percentage), and the Hungarian version of OBS. Results. The confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial structure of OBS with slight changes (?2 (84)=173.6, p