The Morphed Photographic Figure Scale: Creation and validation of a novel set of realistic female body stimuli

Research exploring how people with eating disorders or obesity perceive their bodies, and interventions targeting this rely on high quality figural rating scales. We present data on a new figural scale, the Morphed Photographic Figure Scale (MPFS). It comprises eight sequences of photographic quality images of female bodies varying from underweight to overweight. Each sequence is centred on a veridical photographic image of a female body, and we used image morphing techniques to produce a number of increasingly overweight and increasingly underweight versions of the same body. Morphing provides body images with highly realistic representations of changes in adiposity and muscle tone, and enables manipulation of body weight without introducing idiosyncratic variations in anthropomorphic features, which could impact judgments of physical appearance in unpredictable ways. All images were rated in an online study (n = 377) as underweight, overweight or neither. Within each sequence, rating data showed a clear rank ordering from underweight to overweight. Overweight participants were more likely to rate images as underweight, and less likely to rate them as overweight. Participants with a high level of concern about their own weight (measured using the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire) were more likely to rate images as overweight. We anticipate the MPFS will have application in a range of research domains, including assessment of body image disturbances, and the design of new interventions targeting body image.