Getting health back at Farmworld
 Baw Baw News   By // 19:05, Saturday 28 March 2015

27 march cover

FARMERS will be given the chance to learn belly dancing at Farmworld this weekend as part of a campaign to improve back health.

First published in the 27 March 2015 edition of the Warragul & Baw Baw Citizen.


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Agribusiness Gippsland will run the Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal-funded lessons at its stand in the Health and Wellbeing pavilion.

The group runs the “Getabettaback” program with the intention of improving back, spine and joint health among farmers.

In a media release an Agribusiness Gippsland spokesperson said “dodgy backs are the silent blight of farming.”

A survey conducted by the group last year found 70 per cent of respondents had lived with pain for more than five years.


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Thirteen per cent said back pain was the biggest issue in their farming day, while only 40 per cent sought medical help for their bad back.

Less than 20 per cent took action to keep their backs healthy before developing a bad back.

“We’ve tackled tai chi with grizzled mountain cattlemen at Bairnsdale and now we’re trying belly dancing with the West Gippsland farmers,” the spokesperson said.

“It’s a fun way of highlighting a serious subject.”

Belly dancing tutoring will take place at the Agribusiness Gippsland stand in the Health and Wellbeing pavilion between 10:00 and 11:00 and 12:00 and 13:30 at Farm World, Lardner Park, on Sunday.

There are no age or gender restrictions.

You can stay updated with Agribusiness Gippsland’s campaign on Facebook. Simply click here and hit like.

The Facebook page features updates and advice on how to keep a healthy back on the farm and at home.


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One response to “Getting health back at Farmworld”

  1. sarah key says:

    As someone who treats serious back problems all the time and for many years, I can only endorse the belly-dancing lark. Apart from being great fun and a good community rallying point, it does very good things for a bad back, the reasons for which I will explain. The circular hip-gyrating action deliberately switches on the deep spinal and abdominal muscles that get inhibited by over-dominant action of the long spinal ‘erector spinae’ muscles that reflexly go hard and stiff in chronic protective mode when a spinal segment is inflamed. The undulating lower spinal movement gradually emerges through the rigidity of the spinal muscles. This then needs to be worked upon with natural, uninhibited bending with daily activity coming through and becoming the norm.