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Earth Day in Amish country has a special significance. Folks here are rooted in the earth. They’re farmers, tilling, laboring, sweating, and working without electricity or modern conveniences from sunrise to sunset. Everything they do is done by hand or with the help of animals. Their simple lifestyle and their farming techniques really pay off for them, healthwise.
A study of the Amish, published in the January 2004 Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, found that the obesity rate among Amish farmers and their wives is only 4 percent. An Amish farmer, plowing fields behind a team of horses, averages 51,000 steps in one day–compared to 2,000-3,000 for the average US office worker. They are six times more active than the average non-Amish citizen, and it bears healthy fruit–in the longevity of their lives and in the productivity of their farms. Read the rest of this entry »
