Association between perceived greenness and physical exercise among university students: nature connectedness as a statistical mediator and gender as a moderator.
Perceived greenness was positively associated with physical exercise through nature connectedness as a mediator, with a stronger nature connectedness-exercise association in men than women, though causal ordering cannot be established from this cross-sectional study.
Key Findings
Results
Perceived greenness was positively correlated with both nature connectedness and physical exercise among university students.
Sample consisted of 3,418 university students in China from the cleaned EPOCH-A dataset.
Perceived greenness correlated with nature connectedness at r = 0.288 (p < 0.001).
Perceived greenness correlated with physical exercise at r = 0.068 (p < 0.001).
Nature connectedness was itself positively correlated with exercise at r = 0.131 (p < 0.001).
Perceived greenness was assessed using neighborhood and window-view greenness items for the longest-lived residential environment.
Results
After covariate adjustment, perceived greenness was significantly and positively associated with nature connectedness.
Adjusted association: B = 0.241, 95% CI 0.211–0.271.
Covariates included age, subjective socioeconomic status, grade, and residential setting.
Analysis used HC3 robust standard errors and 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
A conditional process model equivalent to PROCESS Model 14 was estimated.
Results
The association between nature connectedness and physical exercise was significantly moderated by gender, being stronger in men than in women.
The nature connectedness-by-gender interaction term was significant: B = -1.953, 95% CI -2.885 to -1.022.
The nature connectedness-exercise association was B = 2.614 in men.
The nature connectedness-exercise association was B = 0.660 in women.
Nature connectedness was measured using the single-item Inclusion of Nature in Self scale.
Physical exercise was measured using the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 for the previous month.
Results
The conditional indirect association of perceived greenness with exercise through nature connectedness was substantially larger in men than in women.
Conditional indirect effect in men: 0.630 (95% bootstrap CI 0.424–0.853).
Conditional indirect effect in women: 0.159 (95% bootstrap CI 0.052–0.270).
Both bootstrap confidence intervals excluded zero, indicating significant indirect effects in both genders.
The index of moderated mediation was -0.471 (95% bootstrap CI -0.705 to -0.251), confirming significant moderation of the mediated pathway.
Results
Findings were directionally consistent across alternative continuous exercise measures, supporting robustness of the results.
Alternative continuous measures of exercise were examined as sensitivity analyses.
All alternative analyses showed directionally consistent results.
The study was cross-sectional with different temporal reference frames for exposure and outcome, preventing causal inference.
The authors note that 'causal mediation or temporal ordering cannot be established.'
Discussion
The overall associations among perceived greenness, nature connectedness, and physical exercise were characterized as modest but consistent.
The authors describe the concurrent associations as 'modest but consistent.'
The cross-sectional design and differing temporal reference frames for the greenness exposure (longest-lived residential environment) and exercise outcome (previous month) are identified as key limitations.
The study adjusted for age, subjective socioeconomic status, grade, and residential setting.
What This Means
This research suggests that university students who perceive more greenness in their residential environments (such as neighborhood greenery or views of nature from windows) tend to feel more connected to nature, and those who feel more connected to nature tend to exercise more. The study analyzed data from 3,418 university students in China and found that this chain of associations — from greenness to nature connectedness to exercise — was present for both men and women, but was notably stronger for men. Specifically, the link between feeling connected to nature and actually exercising was about four times stronger in men than in women.
The study also found that the indirect pathway from perceived greenness to exercise (running through nature connectedness) was statistically significant for both genders, but the effect size was roughly four times larger for men (0.630) compared to women (0.159). These findings held up when the researchers tested alternative ways of measuring exercise, suggesting the pattern is fairly robust.
This research suggests that residential green environments may support physical activity partly by fostering a psychological sense of connection to nature, and that this mechanism may operate differently for men and women. However, because the study was conducted at a single point in time and the greenness and exercise measures referred to different time periods, it is not possible to determine whether greenness actually causes changes in nature connectedness or exercise — the relationships could reflect other unmeasured factors. Future longitudinal research would be needed to clarify the direction and causality of these associations.
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Jia H, Liu Y. (2026). Association between perceived greenness and physical exercise among university students: nature connectedness as a statistical mediator and gender as a moderator.. Frontiers in public health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1978168