Women who wear hijab or headgear generally have more positive body image and are less reliant on about beauty ideals, and also place less importance to appearance as compared to women who do not wear the headscarf.
A new study, led by an Indian-origin scientist, conducted by Dr Viren Swami from the University of Westminster and colleagues looked at body image issues amongst British Muslim women.
Swami, the lead author of the study published in the British Journal of Psychology said, “While we shouldn’t assume that wearing the hijab immunises Muslim women from negative body image, our results do suggest that wearing the hijab may help some women reject prescriptive beauty ideals.”
A total of 587 Muslim women aged from 18 to 70 years from London participated in a number of tests. From this group 218 women stated they never used the hijab and 369 women said they used some form of the hijab at least now and then.
The results showed that women who wore the have a more positive body image, were less influenced by the media’s beauty ideals and placed less importance on appearance. Researchers said these results may have useful implications for intervention programmes aimed at promoting healthier body image among Muslim women in the West.
