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Gardening Grows More than Flowers and Food
March 23, 2009
Garden-based nutrition-education programs for youth are gaining in popularity, and with good reason. Many see gardening as a promising strategy for encouraging young people to increase their appetites for fruits and vegetables. A review of eleven scientific studies published between 1990 and 2007 found that garden-based nutrition intervention programs may have the potential to promote increased fruit and vegetable intake among youth and increased willingness to taste fruits and vegetables among younger children.
Getting youngsters to eat what they grow is only one of the benefits attributed to the gardening programs springing up around the country. Leaders of programs such as the “Edible Schoolyard” in California and “National Farm-to-School Program” report positive benefit in a wide range of characteristics among youth, including improved environmental attitudes, community spirit, social skills, self-confidence, leadership skills, volunteerism, motor skills, scholastic achievement, and nutritional attitudes.(1)
While the benefits of gardening extend across all age spectrums, recent studies have also highlighted the positive impact of gardening on seniors. Researchers at Kansas State University, who found earlier that gardening results in improvements in mental health and depression, now report that gardening can fulfill the daily recommendation for exercise prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). Results of this more recent study were published in the doctoral dissertation of Sin-Ae Park (entitled “Gardening as a physical activity for health in older adults”).
The researchers, who studied 14 gardeners aged 63-86 years, took measurements of the gardener’s heart rates, oxygen intake and energy expenditure. Participants in the study also kept weekly logs of their gardening activity. At the conclusion of the study, the Kansas State researchers reported that gardening is an excellent way for older adults to meet the physical activity recommendations set forth by both the CDC and ACSM. The researchers also found that senior gardeners had better hand and other physical functions than non-gardeners. Furthermore, gardening was found to be a predictor for leading a physically active lifestyle and high life satisfaction in older adults.
The usefulness of gardening as a health-promoting and/or teaching tool was promoted in the 1800’s by well-known author Ellen White, who wrote that “as a rule, the exercise most beneficial to the youth will be found in useful employment. The little child finds both diversion and development in play; and his sports should be such as to promote not only physical, but mental and spiritual growth. As he gains strength and intelligence, the best recreation will be found in some line of effort that is useful. That which trains the hand to helpfulness, and teaches the young to bear their share of life’s burdens, is most effective in promoting the growth of mind and character.”
(1) Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 2009 Feb;109(2):273-80
(2) Ellen White, Education, page 214, 215.
Topics: Health News