Body appreciation around the world: Measurement invariance of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age

The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) is a widely used measure of a core facet of the positive body image construct. However, extant research concerning measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across a large number of nations remains limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset - with data collected between 2020 and 2022 - to assess measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that full scalar invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional BAS-2 model has widespread applicability. There were large differences across nations and languages in latent body appreciation, while differences across gender identities and age groups were negligible-to-small. Additionally, greater body appreciation was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction, being single (versus being married or in a committed relationship), and greater rurality (versus urbanicity). Across a subset of nations where nation-level data were available, greater body appreciation was also significantly associated with greater cultural distance from the United States and greater relative income inequality. These findings suggest that the BAS-2 likely captures a near-universal conceptualisation of the body appreciation construct, which should facilitate further cross-cultural research

The applicability of evaluable wastes for the adsorption of Reactive Black 5

In this study, it is proposed that pumpkin seed hulls and eggshells that are household wastes are low-cost materials to remove the Reactive Black 5 from water media. Through a number of experiments, the influences of the contact time, adsorption quantity, temperature, and pH of the solution were studied. Characterization of pumpkin seed hulls and eggshells was done by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Adsorption of the experimental data well fitted with both the models called Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm. The maximum experimental capacities of adsorption related to pumpkin seed hulls and eggshells were 9.18 and 18.46 mg g -1 , respectively. The optimum conditions were determined as adsorbent amount = 0.5 g L -1 , pH = 6, and contact time = 15 min for the eggshells adsorption process and adsorbent dosage = 1 g L -1 , pH = 2, and contact time = 30 min for the pumpkin seed hulls adsorption system. In addition, pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and intraparticle diffusion kinetics were used to study the adsorbing dynamics of Reactive Black 5 onto pumpkin seed hulls and eggshells. In this study, it was observed that the pseudo-second-order kinetic was appropriate. Calculation of the thermodynamic parameters, such as changes in the free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of adsorption, was performed. According to the thermodynamic parameters, these processes were less spontaneous, practicable, and exothermic. To remove the dye from aqueous solutions, the pumpkin seed hulls and eggshells can be used as an alternative cheap adsorbent. © 2018, Islamic Azad University (IAU)