When I was going through hell fighting my own obesity, I was taken aside by a very good friend who's also a professional health worker, aiding the most obese to lose weight successfully. "Anne," she laughingly confided. "All you really need to do is buy a house with a garden that needs a lot of digging!" I thought then that she didn't mean it dead seriously. But gradually I have come to understand that she was so right. In oh so many ways. And if obesity is the problem we all know it to be, and public spending is going to be cut back in ways we can only conceive of in our nightmares, then we have to find a simple, effective way of fighting obesity on a national level. And overwhelmingly the message I'm getting from many health professionals is that maybe, as in wartime, we should Dig For Victory. There's even a new movement afoot - called "ecothereapy", which sims to get us all plugged back into nature, to rescue our bodies and our minds. Obviously, digging, planting, mowing and raking is great physical exercise. And if you're growing fruit and veggies, then clearly it encourages healthier cooking and eating. I was interested, too, to find that gardening is also great for mental health. A recent Essex university study showed that 20-30 minutes spent outdoors, gardening or just walking, in any weather, can be more effective in treating mild to moderate depression than any drugs. And it wasn't just about the exercise value. Researchers found that walking indoors in a shopping mall, or exercising in a gym, was nowhere near as valuable! I recently came across Thrive, which is a small charity in Reading who use gardening as a treatment therapy, working with people with various kinds of disability. They've found it helps both physically and mentally, enhancing mood and combating diabetes and obesity. Ecotherapists reckon more than half of the world's population lives in cities, and many people barely ever get a glimpse of green. They reckon human beings evolved in synchrony with nature over millions of years and that we are hard-wired to interact with the air, water, plants, other animals. But since the Industrial Revolution, our lives are regulated not by the sun or moon but instead by the factory clock. Nowadays its even worse with the rise of our computerised lifestyles. Ecotherapists are a new evolution of man, springing up from, not surprisingly, California. They counsel patients to slow down and reconnect with nature by hiking, gardening or simply taking walks outdoors. You start by keeping a journal, not of what you eat or drink, but how much time you spend outdoors, under the sky. Watch out for a growing number of ecotherapists, cos one day you may be writing it on a prescription pad. And before you scoff, perhaps their message is just what we all need!
