RESEARCH

Gardening is Beneficial for Health: A Meta-Analysis

This meta analysis combined the results of 22 previous studies and found strong evidence that gardening has a positive impact on health, leading to improvements in mental well-being and physical health indicators. The meta-analysis suggests that regular gardening can be considered a beneficial activity for improving public health.
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Summary

This meta-analysis looked at all the scientific research done up to January 2016 to see if gardening truly benefits people’s health. The researchers gathered 22 studies that compared the health of people who garden (or started gardening) with those who don’t. These studies came from different parts of the world, mostly the United States and Europe, and looked at various aspects of health, like how happy and relaxed people felt, as well as things like their weight and blood pressure. The researchers then used a statistical method called meta-analysis to combine the results of these individual studies and get a better overall picture of the effects of gardening on health.

The combined results of all the studies showed that gardening has a significant positive impact on health. Specifically, the researchers found that gardening was linked to reductions in feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress, as well as a lower body mass index. At the same time, gardening was associated with increases in people’s satisfaction with life, their overall quality of life, and their sense of connection to the community. Even after considering the possibility that studies showing no benefit might not have been published (publication bias), the positive effects of gardening on health remained. The researchers concluded that regular gardening can be a way to improve public health.

Link

Masashi Soga, Kevin J. Gaston, Yuichi Yamaura, Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis, Preventive Medicine Reports, Volume 5, 2017, Pages 92-99, ISSN 2211-3355

 

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