Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy: page 1 of 10 doi:10.1017/S1352465805002730 Validation of the Body Checking Questionnaire (BCQ) in an Eating Disorders Population Simona Calugi and Riccardo Dalle Grave Villa Garda Hospital, Garda, Italy Marta Ghisi and Ezio Sanavio Padua University, Italy Abstract. The aim of this study was to validate the Body Checking Questionnaire (BCQ) in an eating disorder population, using students in psychology as control. Five hundred and seventy- three females (422 controls and 151 eating disorders patients, mean age 24.1 ± 5.9 years) completed the BCQ and measures of eating disorders psychopathology. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the BCQ measures the global construct of body checking with three correlated subfactors. The BCQ has good test-retest reliability (0.90), and the subfactors had good internal consistency (0.90, 0.92, and 0.84). The BCQ correlates with other body image and eating disorders measures, indicating that the BCQ measure has good concurrent validity. Finally, the BCQ reliably distinguishes eating disorders patients from controls, as well as “dieters” from “non-dieters.” The study provides support for factor structure, validity and reliability of the BCQ on eating disorders population and supports the use of this questionnaire in cross-national studies. Keywords: Body checking, eating disorders, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, psychological tests. The over-evaluation of shape and weight is of primary importance in maintaining eating disorders (Dalle Grave, 1998; Fairburn, Cooper, and Shafran, 2003; Meneghelli, Adami, Gandolfo, and Scopinaro, 1995). Most of the clinical features observed in eating disorders patients are derived directly or indirectly from this core psychopathology (Fairburn et al., 2003). Typical behaviour in patients with an over-evaluation of shape and weight is shape and weight checking, or “body checking”. Typical body checking behaviours include checking one’s weight frequently, viewing one’s appearance hypercritically, checking size of specific body parts or pinching fat in order to compare one’s body with others, and to look for reassurance about one’s shape (Rosen, 1997). Recent cognitive behavioural theories suggest that body checking is of primary importance in maintaining anorexia nervosa (Fairburn et al., 2003) and other eating disorders (Fairburn et al., Reprint requests to Riccardo Dalle Grave, Department of Eating and Weight Disorder, Villa Garda Hospital, Via Montabaldo 89, 37016 Garda (Vr), Italy. E-mail: rdalleg@tin.it © 2006 British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies