Why GARDENING is the best fitness for elderly women
- A small study monitored a group of women gardening twice a week
- After 7 weeks they had dropped waistline sizes, had better stamina
- They also improved their mental health, brain function, hand dexterity
- Women in the study who did not garden saw marked declines in health
Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com
4
View
comments
Gardening is the best form of exercise for elderly women, a new study claims.
Most pensioners spend 80 per cent of their day sat down.
But new research shows just two 50-minute sessions of potting plants and watering flowers dramatically improves endurance, dexterity, and brain function.
After just seven weeks, all of the participants in the study by the American Society for Horticultural Science had lost weight around their middle.
New research shows just two 50-minute sessions of potting plants and watering flowers dramatically improves endurance, dexterity, and brain function
Over that same period, elderly women who did not garden regularly experienced significant declines in their mental and physical health.
To investigate benefits of engaging in gardening, the researchers studied 24 elderly women at an old people’s home who participated in the 15-session gardening intervention.
An additional 26 elderly women at another senior community center (the control group) did not participate in any gardening during the study.
Health assessments were done for both groups before and after the gardening intervention, which involved twice-weekly sessions for an average duration of 50 minutes per session.
-
Spanish doctor gives birth to her third child at 62 despite…
Have YOU tried the Atkins diet? High-protein diet may help…
Intervention participants did gardening tasks such as garden design and planning, making furrows in the plots, making name tags for garden plots, planting transplants, garden maintenance (e.g., fertilizing, weeding, watering, harvesting), and other activities such as flower arrangement and garden parties.
Activities were selected for the study to represent low- to moderate-intensity physical activities that would yield similar health improvements or maintenance.
Following the 15-week program, women in the gardening intervention group exhibited a significant decrease in waist circumference, while the waist circumference of women in the control group showed a tendency to slightly increase.
Women in the gardening intervention group maintained their lean mass, but women in control group lost lean mass over the period.
Women’s aerobic endurance was also affected; the intervention group showed increased scores in an aerobic endurance test; the control group showed no improvement in a step test for aerobic endurance. Women in the intervention group also demonstrated improvements in hand dexterity.
The women in the gardening intervention experienced benefits to cognitive and psychological functions as well.
Assessments revealed that women in the intervention group showed ‘significant improvement’ in cognitive function.
Interestingly, women in the control group exhibited a ‘significant increase’ in scores for depression, with symptoms progressing from normal before the intervention period to moderate depression symptom at the end of the study.
‘Meanwhile, the depression scores of elderly women in the gardening intervention group did not change during this period,’ the authors said.
The researchers said their results demonstrate that the gardening intervention improved the physical and psychological health conditions of the elderly women who participated.
‘Moreover, satisfaction with the gardening intervention as a leisure time physical activity for health conditions of elderly women was very high,’ they said.
Share or comment on this article
-
e-mail
Most watched News videos
- CCTV captures final tragic moments of Mirna Salihin’s life
- Mother shaves daughters hair after she ‘bullies cancer girl’
- GRAPHIC CONTENT: ‘Ghost’ rises from body after fatal crash
- Bulls head butt each other then die instantly from brutal blow
- Shocking moment girl gets viciously beaten after starting fight
- Mother releases devastating footage of son’s final moments
- Lorry smashes into car leaving driver with severe injuries
- Is this the creepy moment the corpse of a girl OPENS her eyes?
- ‘Big fat gypsy wedding’ in Romania goes on for FOUR days
- Groom ALREADY tired of marriage life just after 15 minutes
- ‘Pascal’s a G!’ Kim Kardashian speaks well of her bodyguard
- GoPro captures the moment a croc swims amongst swimmers
-
Donald’s Great Escape: Trump keeps his campaign alive with…
-
The Donald hoists his mini-me on stage as his crowd roars –…
-
Billy Bush ‘BRAGGED to his NBC co-workers about lewd Trump…
-
From a smiling pose to staring eerily into the distance:…
-
Meth mother ‘sat back and watched her boyfriend and his…
-
Now Wikileaks reveals how Bill Clinton’s closest adviser…
-
PIERS MORGAN: The night Bill Clinton and his loose zipper…
-
Trump DARES the Clintons and the press to unveil more…
-
Sickening moment teenage girl trying to take a selfie is…
-
Daughter live streams her parents on a ‘heroin binge’ after…
-
You may now grope the bride: Chinese newlywed ‘allows guests…
-
EXCLUSIVE: ‘I slammed her head against the wall…clumps of…
Comments (4)
Share what you think
-
Newest -
Oldest -
Best rated -
Worst rated
The comments below have not been moderated.
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
Find out now