Recursos Financieros. Presupuesto

A contribution to the research is the development of the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS) as it quantified an individual’s positive attitude towards acceptance and respect for their body (Avalos, Tylka & Wood- Barcalow, 2005). Questionnaires that measure body image assess the anxiety, stress and shame about specific aspects of the body, weight and appearance (Tatangelo, McCabe & Ricciardelli, 2015). As the focus of most research is mainly on the area of negative body image, measures have been constructed to look at individuals negative, rather than positive body attitudes, which can perpetuate an assessment that is out of balance (Lopez, Snyder & Rasmussen, 2003). Williams et al. (2004) identify that measures of positive body image are necessary as it allows psychology and research to explore human strengths.

The Body Appreciation scale (BAS) was designed to assess the extent to which women hold favourable opinions on their body, if they accept and respect their body and protect body image by rejecting unconditional approval (Avalos, Tylka & Wood - Barcalow, 2005).

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- Accept their bodies in spite of weight, shape and imperfections

- Respect their bodies by attending to their bodies needs and engaging in healthy behaviours - Protect their body image by rejecting unrealistic images of the thin ideal prototype that is portrayed

in the media.

Once the items were created, it was revised and clarified to ensure the measure was accurate (Avalos et al, 2005). The measure was piloted on 23 undergraduate college women who indicated that each item was easy to read (Avalos et al, 2005). Scores were found to be internally consistent and correlated above .46 with the total score (Avalos et al, 2005). Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, (1= never, 2= seldom, 3= sometimes, 4= often, to 5= always), and higher scores reflect a greater body appreciation (Avalos et al, 2005). The scores are also positively correlated with scores on psychometric tests measuring well-being, self-esteem, optimism, life satisfaction, compassion and subjective happiness (Avalos et al, 2005). This highlights the importance of its use within the discipline of psychology, as stated earlier in this report. In order to see how cross culturally affective the BAS was, Ng (2015) used confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the conceptual equivalent of BAS among Chinese women, and found only one factor was reflective of general body appreciation which had adequate internal consistency (Ng, 2015). Good patterns of construct validity indicated through significant correlations with participants’ self-esteem (Ng, 2015). This indicates there may be cultural differences in the concept and experience of body appreciation (Ng, 2015). Swami and Chaorro - Premuzic (2008) also examined the factor structure of the body appreciation scale (BAS) among Malaysian women, the first study to use the BAS in a non-western setting. They found Malaysian women’s BAS score reduced to two dimensions, two other factors did not load and was dropped from analysis (Swami & Chamorro - Premuzic, 2008). Thus, there seems to be a cross cultural difference in variables contributing to positive body image, thus holding different attitudes towards their body (Swami & Chamorro - Premuzic, 2008). Consequently, according to these scores, the BAS can therefore not be

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implemented for other cultural groups. This raises the question of its use and validity within the Black British community.

Swami, Airs, Chouhan and Leon (2009) examined ethnic differences in the BAS responses amongst an ethnic sample of women in Britain. They also used the Rosenberg self- esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965). The participants’ demographics were taken such as age, religion and BMI (Swami, Airs, Chouhan & Leon, 2009). 387 female participants were recruited from various Universities in Greater London; 131 were Caucasian, 122 were South Asian and 67 were of African Caribbean and 67 were Hispanic decent (Swami, Airs, Chouhan & Leon, 2009). Results showed ethnic differences in positive body image, specifically Hispanic Women who had the highest body appreciation scores, followed by Black British and White women, then South Asian women (Swami et al, 2009). This may suggest some ethnic groups hold a higher body image compared to White women due to not internalizing mainstream norms of beauty (Flynn & Fitzgibbo, 1998). This resonates with the findings of Swami, Airs, Chouhan and Leon (2009) that indicate Hispanic and African Caribbean women had the lowest scores on the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire – 3 subscales which suggests less use of media as a source of information about appearance ideals, lower perceived media pressure to modify one’s appearance and lower incorporation of media portrayals of the ideal body into one’s self-identity (Swami, Airs, Chouhan & Leon, 2009). Women from these social groups adopt a more flexible view of beauty in ways that emphasize aspects other than just physical appearance (Rubin, Fitts & Becker, 2003). Some ethnic groups hold higher self-esteem than South Asian and White women which has been hypothesised may be due to self-esteem associated with individual and cultural differences in the ability to cope with trauma (Thompson, 1992). Self-esteem, socio cultural influences and ethnicity are all interrelated and result in certain ethnic groups having a more positive body image (Swami, Airs, Chouhan & Leon 2009). This study however did not look at the relationship participants have towards food, their family structure and perceptions of health (Markey, 2004). South Asian women scored lower in the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire – 3 (SATAQ-3), however they did not take into account which media influences they were talking about, for

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example Bollywood films (Swami Airs, Chouhan & Leon 2009). This study however only used Undergraduate students which may make it harder to generalise across other groups of women (Swami, Airs, Chouhan & Leon 2009).

The body appreciation scale has been used on a number of non-English speaking countries such as, Germany and Asia (Swami et al, 2011). The main finding from these studies showed the relationship between body appreciation and other variables, supporting the BAS measure having value across a range of cultural contexts (Tiggermann, 2015). Swami and Chamorro- Premuzic (2008) identified that for Malaysian women in Kuala Lumper, women may feel conflict within their industrial setting, with regards to westerns ideals of individual control over the body and the most traditional eastern ideals of humbling. Therefore items relating to independence or adaptive investment in the body may be associated with positive body image among non – western samples (Tiggermann, 2015). There are inconsistencies within the research, which highlights the importance of the nature of the measures used to assess body appreciation (Levine & Smolak, 2010). Roberts et al (2006), advocates the Multidimensional Body Self Relations Questionnaire (Brown, Cash & Mikulka, 1990) which is global rather than weight specific. Global scales may be more indicative of self-esteem and could potentially highlight larger ethnic group differences than scales that just focus on weight (Roberts et al, 2006). Differences in global scales and weight specific scales can raise questions of the meaning of weight, shape and the variance in ethnicity and culture not just between Black and White females but understanding potential differences within ethnicities and cultures.