Gardening Articles: Flowers :: Annuals Gardening Improves Health
of Older Adults by Charlie Nardozzi Its widely known that
regular exercise contributes to the prevention of chronic
diseases associated with aging and helps maintain an independent
lifestyle. While many seniors find regular exercise boring and
inconvenient, gardening is a popular leisure activity of this
population. Researchers at Kansas State University wanted to see
if gardening alone can supply the recommended amount and
intensity of exercise needed for seniors to stay healthy.
Researchers randomly recruited seniors from Manhattan, Kansas,
and investigated the exercise intensity of nine different garden
tasks: gripping, stooping, lifting, stretching, walking,
standing, kneeling, sitting, and squatting. They regularly
measured heart rate, oxygen usage, energy expenditure, bone
density, and hand strength. Results indicated that the nine
gardening tasks gave seniors low to moderate physical activity
and met the recommended 30 minutes of daily mo