Community Gardening Offers Several Benefits, Including Improved Health

Community gardening not only provides a variety of social and nutritional benefits to neighborhoods, it can be good for your health, according to a U.S. study. For the study, researchers compared community gardeners' BMIs (body mass indices) and odds of being overweight or obese with three control groups. Women community gardeners had an average BMI that was 1.84 points lower than their neighbors. That’s an 11 pound difference for a woman 5 feet 5 inches tall. Male gardeners who were 5 feet 10 inches tall had a BMI that was 2.36 points lower – or 16 pounds – than their neighbors.