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      Is Open Access

      Biophilia: Does Visual Contact with Nature Impact on Health and Well-Being?

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          Abstract

          It is concluded that an environment devoid of Nature may act as a “discord”, i.e., have a negative effect. While the term mismatch is used for any difference between present living conditions and the environment of evolutionary adaptation, discords are mismatches with a potentially undesirable impact on health or quality of life. The problem is partly due to the visual absence of plants, and may be ameliorated by adding elements of Nature, e.g., by creating parks, by offering a view through windows, and by potted plants. The conclusion is based on an evaluation of some fifty relevant empirical studies.

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          View through a window may influence recovery from surgery.

          R. Ulrich (1984)
          Records on recovery after cholecystectomy of patients in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital between 1972 and 1981 were examined to determine whether assignment to a room with a window view of a natural setting might have restorative influences. Twenty-three surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses' notes, and took fewer potent analgesics than 23 matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.
          Article 0 comments Cited 183 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
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            Stone agers in the fast lane: chronic degenerative diseases in evolutionary perspective.

            S.Boyd Eaton, Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak (1988)
            From a genetic standpoint, humans living today are Stone Age hunter-gatherers displaced through time to a world that differs from that for which our genetic constitution was selected. Unlike evolutionary maladaptation, our current discordance has little effect on reproductive success; rather it acts as a potent promoter of chronic illnesses: atherosclerosis, essential hypertension, many cancers, diabetes mellitus, and obesity among others. These diseases are the results of interaction between genetically controlled biochemical processes and a myriad of biocultural influences--lifestyle factors--that include nutrition, exercise, and exposure to noxious substances. Although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past 10,000 years, especially since the Industrial Revolution. There is increasing evidence that the resulting mismatch fosters "diseases of civilization" that together cause 75 percent of all deaths in Western nations, but that are rare among persons whose lifeways reflect those of our preagricultural ancestors.
            Article 0 comments Cited 123 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
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              Is love of nature in the US becoming love of electronic media? 16-year downtrend in national park visits explained by watching movies, playing video games, internet use, and oil prices.

              Oliver Pergams, Patricia A Zaradic (2006)
              After 50 years of steady increase, per capita visits to US national parks have declined since 1988. This decline, coincident with the rise in electronic entertainment media, may represent a shift in recreation choices with broader implications for the value placed on biodiversity conservation and environmentally responsible behavior. We compared the decline in per capita visits with a set of indicators representing alternate recreation choices and constraints. The Spearman correlation analyses found this decline in NPV to be significantly negatively correlated with several electronic entertainment indicators: hours of television, (rs=-0.743, P<0.001), video games (rs=-0.773, P<0.001), home movies (rs=-0.788, P<0.001), theatre attendance (rs=-0.587, P<0.025) and internet use (rs=-0.783, P<0.001). There were also significant negative correlations with oil prices (rs=-0.547, P<0.025), foreign travel (rs=-0.452, P<0.05), and Appalachian Trail hikers (rs=-0.785, P<0.001). Income was significantly positively correlated with foreign travel (rs=0.621, P<0.005) but negatively correlated with national park visits (rs=-0.697, P<0.005). There was no significant correlation of mean number of vacation days, indicating available vacation time is probably not a factor. Federal funding actually increased during this period, and so was rejected as a probable factor. Park capacity was rejected as limiting since both total overnight stays and visits at the seven most popular parks rose well into the mid-1990s. Aging of baby boomers was also rejected as they are only now reaching retirement age, and thus during the period of visitation decline were still of prime family vacation age. Multiple linear regression of four of the entertainment media variables as well as oil prices explains 97.5% of this recent decline (r=0.975, multiple r2=0.950, adjusted multiple r2=0.925, SE=0.015, F=37.800, P<0.0001). We may be seeing evidence of a fundamental shift away from people's appreciation of nature (biophilia, Wilson 1984) to 'videophilia,' which we here define as "the new human tendency to focus on sedentary activities involving electronic media." Such a shift would not bode well for the future of biodiversity conservation.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Int J Environ Res Public Health
                Journal ID (publisher-id): 101238455
                Title: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
                Publisher: Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
                ISSN (Print): 1661-7827
                ISSN (Electronic): 1660-4601
                Publication date (Print): September 2009
                Publication date (Electronic): 31 August 2009
                Volume: 6
                Issue: 9
                Pages: 2332-2343
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Norwegian Institute of Public Health, PO Box 4404 Nydalen, 0403 Oslo, Norway
                [2 ] Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Box 5003, N-1432 Ås, Norway; E-Mail: grete.patil@ 123456umb.no
                Author notes
                [* ]Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: bjgr@ 123456fhi.no ; Tel.: +47-2107-6420; Fax: +47-2107-6447
                Article
                Publisher ID: ijerph-06-02332
                DOI: 10.3390/ijerph6092332
                PMC ID: 2760412
                PubMed ID: 19826546
                SO-VID: 2456965d-5b86-4035-9e45-b375b25dc229
                Copyright © © 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.
                License:

                This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

                History
                Date received : 22 July 2009
                Date accepted : 27 August 2009
                Categories
                Subject: Review

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health
                Keywords: discord,indoor environment,evolutionary psychology,plants,quality of life,health,biophilia
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health
                Keywords: discord, indoor environment, evolutionary psychology, plants, quality of life, health, biophilia

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