Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Rangan Chatterjee is a doctor, author, podcaster and television presenter, best known for BBC One’s Doctor in the House. His bestselling books are about improving health, lowering stress and getting more sleep.
Do you encourage patients to garden? Absolutely, especially if there’s a local gardening group or allotment community. I know some people also use gardening for solitude and peace, but when we connect with other people it’s good for our mental health.
How can gardening help us lose weight? Gardening does much more than burn calories. It improves self-esteem and sleep, and lowers stress. Going out in the day helps us sleep at night, as it sets our body’s circadian rhythm. When we sleep well, we don’t crave sugary food as much and are more able to resist temptation. So gardening is a key part of weight-loss strategy.
How can growing our own food benefit our mental wellbeing?
Gardening teaches us patience. We’re living in a world where we can have shopping delivered within hours and binge-watch a TV series in one sitting. Delayed gratification is something we’re missing and it’s reducing our attention span. Anything that teaches us patience will benefit our wellbeing and our eating habits. Gardening is a prime example – you sow things, then you have to wait for them to come to fruition.
How does gardening boost self-esteem? We’re often reactive in our behaviour – we pick up our phones, look at social media and check the news. We can feel like all we’re doing is
consuming information and that we’ve not done anything that makes us feel we’re worth taking care of. Gardening connects us with something bigger, providing a sense of achievement.
Why is it important for kids to garden? We’re so disconnected from our food supply that we now need government guidelines to tell us what to eat. For most of human evolution our diet was dictated by geography and what we learnt from our parents – but we’ve lost that. So I think it should be mandatory for gardening to be taught in schools – the knock-on benefits for our health and society are huge.
Do you garden at home?
Yes, and last summer I started growing fruit and veg with my kids. I spent a lot of time with them and it was fun for all of us. I’ve written books on healthy eating for years, and it made me think, why not grow it yourself?
Hear more from Dr Chatterjee on how gardening can improve your health on our podcast: gardenersworld.com/podcast
Feel Great, Lose Weight by Dr Rangan Chatterjee is published on 31 December 2020, £16.99