In spite of more awareness about the increased concern of women about their body image and shape, a scale measuring the level of concern about body shape has not been developed in Korea yet. The currently available Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) was developed and validated within a Western context. Therefore, this study created the Korean version of the BSQ (K-BSQ) to target young women with concern about body shape. This study aimed to translate the 16-item version of the BSQ and examine the reliability and validity of the resulting scale. Participants included 243 young women aged 19-39 years from South Korea. The reliability and validity were examined using Cronbach's alpha, item analysis, factor analysis, and correlation with the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT). Results showed that the reliability was high, as indicated by a Cronbach's alpha of 0.95. The factor analysis of 16 items revealed two factors. They explained 65.74 percent of the variance in the Korean version of the BSQ. In addition, K-BSQ scores were related to those of the EAT significantly (r = 0.61, p < .001). It was concluded that the K-BSQ may serve as an appropriate instrument to measure the body shape concerns of young Korean women.
Keywords: Factor analysis; personal satisfaction; questionnaire; women.