| Body image concerns and eating disorders used to be regarded as prevalent exclusively in western countries, yet during the last several decades these issues have been documented in rapidly developing Asian countries such as Mainland China where body types are typically leaner. Body dissatisfaction and eating disorders are characterized by a chronic course, functional impairment, medical complications, and increased risk for future obesity, later depression, suicide attempts, and poor health. The tripartite influence model has emerged as one of the most widely-used approaches to explaining the development of these problems and identifies appearance social comparisons as a key influence on body dissatisfaction, weight regulation, and disordered eating.Most of previous studies on appearance comparisons have linked high appearance comparisons frequencies with disturbances in body image and eating. However, more recently, some authors argued that upward appearance comparisons and downward appearance comparisons may have different effects on body image. Upward appearance comparisons refer to comparisons with others perceived to be physically more attractive, while downward appearance comparisons mean comparisons with people perceived to be less attractive. To evaluate the potentially distinct effects of appearance comparison direction on attitudes and functioning, O’Brien, Caputi, Minto, Peoples, Hooper, Kell, & Sawley (2009) developed directional measures among Australian university students (60% women), which were found to have satisfactory internal consistency, stability over two weeks, and construct validity. However, these scales have not been used outside of Australia or in any longitudinal designs.In this research, the structure and validity of the Upward Appearance Comparison Scale (UPACS) and Downward Appearance Comparison Scale (DACS) (O’Brien et al.,2009) were evaluated in Chinese samples. In Study 1, principal component analyses on an initial sample (427 women,123 men) and confirmatory factor analyses on a second sample (447 women,121 men) found that a 15-item, two-component model had the best fit across groups. The first component had seven UPACS items and accounted for 40.72% of the variance. The second component had all eight DACS items and explained 13.43% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) in the second sample indicated the two component solution comprised of a seven-item UPACS and an eight-item DACS had the best overall fits of several alternative models (CFI=.943, TLI=.933, RMSEA=.070, SRMR=.053). Derived components had moderate correlations with most conceptually-related measures (i.e., appearance comparison frequencies, appearance pressure, investment in appearance, eating disturbances, fatness concerns, contingent self-esteem) and low correlations with less conceptually-related indices (i.e., age, BMI, income, self-esteem, positive affect, coping).In Study 2 participants (310 women,201 men) completed the UPACS and DACS as well as measures of disordered eating, fatness concern and negative affect and were re-assessed one year later. Baseline UPACS scores predicted changes in disordered eating for women and fatness concerns for men, independent of initial disturbances, but DACS responses were not related to outcomes. Together, findings highlighted the potential utility of the derived UPACS and DACS as correlates of body image disturbances within a Chinese context and the status of upward appearance comparisons as a possible risk factor for specific concerns within each gender. |
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