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Brazilian researchers have not been provided with instruments with which to investigate body image avoidance behaviors. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire (BIAQ) for Brazil. The translation, synthesis, back-translation, Brazilian questionnaire formulation, and pretest were carried out in the first phase of the study. The study of the scale's psychometric properties was conducted in the second phase of the study. Brazilian BIAQ has 13 items and good adjustment indexes. There was a greater adherence to the sampling data in the model in which the avoidance of body image is maintained by control strategies, by the refusal of body exposure, and by strategies that accommodate tension. This work is expected to enable the comparison of international data and the performance of multicultural studies on body avoidance behavior, expanding research possibilities in Brazil and worldwide.
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Avoiding bodily exposure from one's own view, as well as from the view of others, and the reluctance to perceive the limits of the body are behaviors that translate into a deep depreciation of and dissatisfaction with one's own body (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1998).
Body avoidance behavior is one kind of response to the thoughts and emotions related to events and actions that have brought a sense of devaluation of or caused a great state of dissatisfaction with the body. The subject employs a number of methods: avoiding social situations and bodily exposure to the public, quitting the use of short or tightfitting clothes, and refraining from close contact with others that accommodate and stimulate dissatisfaction (Cash, 2002). It is the strategy used to reduce the tension generated by feelings of inadequacy and self-devaluation. The adopted "life style" is elaborated especially to accommodate the negative perception of body image. Any situation that could possibly cause worry about physical appearance starts to be decisively avoided-in turn, compromising the subject's social life (Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg, & Wendt, 1991; Thompson et al., 1998).
The problems with body image can be arranged on a continuum varying from moderate dissatisfaction and preoccupation with the body to an extreme preoccupation with physical appearance. This simultaneous dissatisfaction and extreme worry is called a negative body image. Negative body image implies a...