Gardening can Boost Your Body Image Amid COVID-19 Lockdown

Love your body: Gardening can improve your body image and boost your self-esteem. So, hurry up, start spending more time in the garden to get a positive body image during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Highlights:

Gardening can help you love and appreciate your own body
Being close to nature and spending more time in the garden can help you build a positive body image
So, create or restore the green space around your house to boost your overall wellbeing and develop a positive attitude towards your body image amid COVID-19 lockdown

Spending more time in the garden can boost your self-esteem and improve your body image during the coronavirus lockdown, suggests a new study.//

New research has found that allotment gardening promotes positive body image, which measures someone’s appreciation of their own body and its functions, and an acceptance of bodily imperfections.

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‘Love your body: Gardening can improve your body image and boost your self-esteem. So, hurry up, start spending more time in the garden to get a positive body image during the COVID-19 lockdown.’
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The study, published in the journal Ecopsychology and led by Professor Viren Swami of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), involved 84 gardeners from 12 urban allotment sites in north London.

Through a series of questionnaires, it found that the gardeners had significantly higher levels of body appreciation, significantly higher levels of body pride, and significantly higher levels of appreciation for their body’s functionality, compared to a group of 81 non-gardeners, recruited from the same area of London.

The study also discovered that the longer period of time the participants spent gardening, the larger the improvement in positive body image when they left their allotment.

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Previous research has shown that gardening is associated with improved psychological wellbeing and physical health. This new study adds to previous work by Professor Swami demonstrating that exposure to natural environments helps to promote positive body image.

Viren Swami, Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), in Cambridge, and Perdana University, in Malaysia, said: "Positive body image is beneficial because it helps to foster psychological and physical resilience, which contributes to overall wellbeing.

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"My previous research has shown the benefits of being in nature more generally, but increasing urbanization has meant that many people now have less access to nature.”

"The findings from this new study are important because they specifically show the significant benefits of spending time on allotments, which are typically quite small patches of green space in otherwise mainly urban environments.”

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"Ensuring that opportunities for gardening are available to all people is, therefore, vital and may help to reduce the long-term cost burden on health services. One way to achieve this, beyond policies that ensure access to nature for all citizens, would be through the provision of dedicated and sustained community allotment plots."

Source-Eurekalert