A new study from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge found that spending time in the snow can enhance your feelings about your body. It is believed that this is because it helps to distract your mind from negative thoughts about your body shape and forces you to appreciate how it moves instead. Lead author Professor Viren Swami stated, "Natural environments help to restrict thoughts related to negative appearance and redirect attention away from the aesthetic view of the body toward a greater appreciation of its functions. A positive body image is important not only in itself but also has other beneficial effects, including increased positive psychological wellbeing."
Previous research by Professor Swami has shown that green spaces, like parks and forests, and "blue environments," such as the sea, can enhance our body appreciation. The aim of the new study, published this month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was to investigate whether "white spaces" could have a similar benefit. Professor Swami's team recruited 87 female volunteers to walk in the snow-covered Cygański Las forest in Poland for an average of 40 minutes. Before this, the women completed questionnaires assessing their body appreciation on a scale of one to five, as well as their connection to nature and self-compassion. After the walk, another body appreciation survey was conducted. The results showed that their body appreciation ratings increased by an average of 0.29. The researchers wrote in their paper: "Natural environments have the potential to restore depleted psychological resources."
Additionally, since the volunteers were walking, this may have allowed them to "focus more clearly on the feeling of gratitude for what their bodies have allowed them to accomplish." The study also found that those who scored higher in self-compassion experienced greater increases in body appreciation after the walk. The researchers, supported by academics from the Medical University of Silesia, suggest that these women may have "characteristics and tendencies" that allow them to benefit more from the natural environment. They wrote, "The undistracted contemplations that occur in natural environments may enable individuals with high self-compassion to calm their minds or reach a state of relaxation more quickly, which in turn may lead to greater effects on body image." This walk may help them recognize that "everyone has flaws" and encourage them to "show kindness and acceptance toward their bodies," which may come more naturally to those with high self-compassion. The researchers claim this is the first study linking time spent in snowy natural landscapes, whether alone or in a group, to improved feelings about one's body.