Fat phobia scale revisited: the short form.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a shortened form of the original 50-item fat phobia scale.

METHOD: The first factor from the original fat phobia scale-undisciplined, inactive and unappealing-was identified as a potential short form of the scale. A new sample of 255 people completed the original 50-item scale. The reliability of a shortened 14-item version of the scale was tested and compared to that of the full scale using both the new sample and the original sample of 1135 study participants.

RESULTS

The fat phobia scale-short form demonstrated excellent reliability in both samples and was strongly correlated with the 50-item scale. Mean and 90th percentile scores are given for both the long and short versions of the scale.

CONCLUSION

The shortened fat phobia scale is expected to increase the utility of the measure in a diverse array of research and clinical settings. Future research should focus on developing scale norms for the general population and conducting research on fat phobia in males and among different ethnic groups.