A Structural Model of Body - Image in Iranian's Female Students: Effects of Weight, Height, Body Mass Index, Self- Esteem, Appearance Schema, Appearance Related Beliefs and Body Checking on Body Image

To investigate a model about body image of Iranian’s female students and determining structural relations of physical and psychological factors related to body image, 497 female students from Islamic Azad University Zarand Branch randomly selected. After measuring weight, height and calculating body mass index of participants, they assessed by body image state scale, self- esteem scale of Marsh self-concept test, the appearance schema inventory-revised, personal appearance beliefs test and body checking questionnaire. Evaluation of the proposed model with structural equation modeling (SEM) by using of maximum likelihood estimation of AMOS software and calculation of fit indices indicated that, hypothetical model has the goodness of fit with the data. Results showed that, these model direct and indirect effects of physical and cognitive-behavioral factors respectively, .417 and .33, explain 53% of variation in body image. These findings are consistent with the results of other research, modeling in the area of body image, and furthermore, helping in better knowing complex biological and psychological structure of body image.