A Prescription for Healthy Kids

For many parents, some of our best childhood memories are of the outdoors.   Whether it was playing neighborhood freeze tag, building a fort in the nearby vacant lot, splashing around in a creek, or riding our bike to the park, most of us had a lot of fun playing outside.  Our formative years consisted of hours of unstructured, outdoor play.

But today’s children will have very different childhood memories. 

Today, we lead busy and highly structured lives.  We get off of work and shuttle our children to sports practice and music lessons.  Then we rush home in time to feed them, help them finish homework and get them into bed.  This leaves them with no unscheduled time.

When we do have some down time, most of parents today don’t feel comfortable letting our kids roam free through the neighborhood without supervision.  In fact, experts estimate that a child’s range for roaming and wandering today is one-ninth of what ours was.

And besides, many kids will tell you they don’t want to go outside.  Why would they choose the challenges of the outdoors (“That’s boring mom!”) when they can be easily entertained by TV, video games and the internet?

But our highly structured lives, lived primarily indoors, are not good for our children’s health. Today we are raising a generation of children who have lost their connection with the outdoors.  It is a crisis that has become known as “nature-deficit disorder.”

The result?  In his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv shows that this disconnect may play a big role in increased rates of obesity, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression and stress in our children.

Pediatric care providers are particularly tuned into the problem of reduced time for unstructured play. They’ve known for a long time that getting children out and moving about burns calories, lowering the risk of childhood obesity.  But new research shows additional benefits of outside play.

A 2006 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states that free and unstructured play is healthy - and in fact essential - for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones.  Unstructured play, whether indoors or outside, helps children manage stress and become resilient. 

Fortunately, “nature deficit disorder” is a problem parents and communities can solve. Spurred by the publication of Louv’s book, a movement referred to as “No Child Left Inside” is sweeping the nation. 

Connecticut has launched a program to get children and parents out to state parks and provide more outdoor opportunities.  Many school districts are restoring previous cuts in outdoor playtime and investing in outdoor classrooms where children can learn through direct contact with nature. And in some communities, developers are rethinking how they build neighborhoods to include areas where children can play safely. 

Health care providers are also addressing this problem.  As a result of the AAP report on children and play, health care providers have been given new guidelines for patients and parents, which include recommending that all children be afforded ample, unscheduled, independent, non-screen time to be creative, to reflect, and to decompress. Health care providers are also encouraged to be advocates for developing safe spaces for children to play.

As Louv says, “Healing the broken bonds between our young and nature is in everyone’s self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical and spiritual health depend upon it.”

Time is one of the most valuable resources, so reserve some of it for your kids to get outside and play. It’s not just for fun. Their health depends on it. 

 

This article was adapted from one that appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of Athens Parent Magazine.  Kyla Hastie is the Assistant Regional Director for External Affairs for the Service’s Northeast Region.  Shani Howard is a nurse practitioner at Oconee Pediatric Associates in Watkinsville, Georgia.