Effect of compassion meditation and amount of exercise on body image in a pretest-posttest study of college freshmen women and men

To assess the effect of meditation and amount of exercise on body image, 61 freshmen college students were randomized to six weeks of training in compassion meditation or to an active control condition consisting of a health discussion group. During the 1st (pretest) and 14th weeks (posttest) semesters of a personal health course, 32 women and 29 men completed the Adame, Cole, Johnson, and Matthiasson Amount of Exercise Scale, Stanford Usual Activity Questionnaire, and the Cash Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire. High practice time and low practice time meditators (defined by median split) were compared to each other and to controls. The sample was divided into two exercise groups: 1) amount of exercise decreased over the course of the semester; 2) exercise increased or remained the same. Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that high practice meditators who increased or had no change in amount of exercise felt more positive about their appearance (p = .001) and demonstrated increased satisfaction with most areas of their body. High practice meditators who decreased exercise levels were less satisfied with their appearance. High practice meditators increased their investment in a physically healthy lifestyle while low practice meditators and controls became more apathetic about their health (p = .01). Overall, students who increased or maintained their amount of exercise increased their investment in being physically fit or athletically competent (p = .03). These findings suggest that compassion meditation and amount of exercise may interact to affect body image in college students.