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Focus On Home-Grown Food Helps Mental Health Patients
Innovative outdoors projects are helping people with mental health problems improve their lifestyle by connecting with nature, reports Nursing Standard.
The projects, run by the mental health charity Rethink, provide allotments for people to grow fruit, vegetables and berries, and boost their diet with the rewards.
Rethink aim to help people capture the traditional therapeutic value of gardening in their National Lottery-funded projects across Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset. All the allotment keepers are people with illnesses ranging from mild depression to schizophrenia.
Working the land builds self-esteem, says the charity, and helps to improve diet. Individual support is given to patients to develop their gardening skills.
Area services manager for Wiltshire, Kris Scotting, said: "We want to move away from the junk food culture. The allotment keepers get gentle exercise, are in the great outdoors getting sunshine and can eat fresh seasonal food."
Although there are currently no plans to extend the scheme, Mr Scotting intends to set up a support network and develop an advice pack for people with mental health problems who want to take on an allotment.
He said: "There is research saying that being outside in the light improves your mood. Being in the sunshine has to be better than staying in a bedsit. We have found this scheme gives people a greater appreciation of food - they begin to look at recipes and value food more."
Chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, Andrew McCulloch, agrees that diet is crucial for mental health patients.
"We know dietary interventions may hold the key to a number of mental health challenges, yet we rarely invest in developing this knowledge," he said. "A relatively tiny, but growing, number of professionals are, however, putting it to eff
Innovative outdoors projects are helping people with mental health problems improve their lifestyle by connecting with nature, reports Nursing Standard.
The projects, run by the mental health charity Rethink, provide allotments for people to grow fruit, vegetables and berries, and boost their diet with the rewards.
Rethink aim to help people capture the traditional therapeutic value of gardening in their National Lottery-funded projects across Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset. All the allotment keepers are people with illnesses ranging from mild depression to schizophrenia.
Working the land builds self-esteem, says the charity, and helps to improve diet. Individual support is given to patients to develop their gardening skills.
Area services manager for Wiltshire, Kris Scotting, said: "We want to move away from the junk food culture. The allotment keepers get gentle exercise, are in the great outdoors getting sunshine and can eat fresh seasonal food."
Although there are currently no plans to extend the scheme, Mr Scotting intends to set up a support network and develop an advice pack for people with mental health problems who want to take on an allotment.
He said: "There is research saying that being outside in the light improves your mood. Being in the sunshine has to be better than staying in a bedsit. We have found this scheme gives people a greater appreciation of food - they begin to look at recipes and value food more."
Chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, Andrew McCulloch, agrees that diet is crucial for mental health patients.
"We know dietary interventions may hold the key to a number of mental health challenges, yet we rarely invest in developing this knowledge," he said. "A relatively tiny, but growing, number of professionals are, however, putting it to eff