For American parents who want their kids to be fit, focused and
feeling good, the first step is get them outside, according to
the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), which has just issued a health
report, Whole Child: Developing Mind, Body and Spirit through Outdoor
Play as part of their Be Out There
™ campaign.
The peer-reviewed report reveals how the shift in American childhood over the last 20 years from one "engaged in a healthy, imaginative, interactive way to one that is inwardly facing, sedentary and expecting things to be fed to [them]" has affected children's physical and mental wellness. Available on-line, the report provides tools and recommendations for caregivers, healthcare providers, educators and policy makers to get children outdoors.
Not enough unstructured free play
The report says that this is the typical day in the life of the average American kid in 2010:
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Breakfast in front of a TV, followed by a
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Bus or car ride to school, texting on the way, then
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A school day with little or no recess, followed by
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After-school snacks in front of the TV
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Homework
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Drive-thru dinner in the backseat on a mad dash to extracurricular activities, followed by
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Computer face time
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More texting
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More TV
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Bed
The report says the lives of average kids in 2010 are immersed in
technology, and that parents need to wake up to the reality that
children today spend only four to seven minutes outside each day in
unstructured
outdoor free play. While their parents spent free time in activities
like a neighborhood game of tag, building forts, or climbing trees, the
modern child's day includes far more screen time than green time.
Advice for parents
NWF advises that parents, and other caregivers, can do the following to encourage outdoor time:
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Take the pledge to Be Out There ™ and get your kids out into the great outdoors.
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Be a role model for your kids: show them how to un-plug from media and plug into nature.
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Where safe, encourage your kids to walk or bike to school.
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Find simple and fun outdoor activities.
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Enlist friends and neighbors to create outdoor playgroups.
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Join kids for outdoor fun in the backyard, garden, park or nature trail.
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Download the Be Out There health questions to share with your child's pediatrician and school health professional.
Serious public health issue
"American kids are out of shape, tuned out and stressed out because
they're missing something essential to their health and development, unstructured
time outdoors," says NWF Senior Vice President of Education Kevin
Coyle. "It's not just about a loss of innocence, the detachment from all
things growing and green. It's a serious public health issue we all
need to care about."
According to Deputy U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Rutstein, lack of
outdoor time is a key factor in the childhood obesity epidemic and, if
trends aren't reversed, may contribute to a generation with not only
unhealthier but also shorter lives. "Overweight and obese adolescents
have a 70 percent chance of becoming obese adults," he says. "If this
problem is not addressed, we will leave our children a legacy of shorter
life spans for the first time in history."
The Whole Child health report brings together a comprehensive picture of
the effects to mind, body and spirit of the societal shift toward
growing up indoors, including not only epidemic childhood obesity but
also precipitously rising rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), childhood diabetes, and pediatric depression. It
reveals the ways in which nature can help combat these problems and
improve quality of life.
"I am deeply troubled by some of the trends I see in my practice
including increased obesity in kids and higher rates of asthma, ADHD, anxiety
and depression. What all kids need are natural, safe places where they
can play," says Dr. Sandra Stenmark, a pediatrician with Kaiser
Permanente and Physician Lead of Colorado Pediatric Cardiovascular
Health who participated in NWF's Summit on Children and the Outdoors
this last April.
The health report is part of NWF's Be Out There
™ movement, which was
created to give back to American children what they don't even know
they've lost: their connection to the natural world. In the process, NWF
aims to help reverse alarming health trends and help families raise
happier, healthier kids.
"As this report reveals, nature may indeed be the best kind of nurture,"
says NWF Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Jaime
Berman Matyas.
The medical profession is starting to take note. "I've begun hearing
about doctors around the country who are medicating their patients with
nature in order to prevent or treat health problems ranging from heart
disease to attention deficit disorder," says Daphne Miller, MD, family
physician and associate clinical professor at the University of
California, San Francisco.
Whole Child includes recommendations for caregivers, healthcare
providers, local, state and national leaders, and educators so that,
together, they can begin changing American children's indoor habits.
Recommendations include asking parents to model "un-plugging" from
technology and taking the Be Out There pledge to go outside with
their children and advising pediatricians to write prescriptions for
regular outdoor time for kids.
"I would rather write a prescription for safe, outdoor play for my
pediatric patients than see them five years later with depression,
anxiety and obesity," says Wendy Kohatsu, MD, with Santa Rosa Family
Medicine and assistant clinical professor at the University of
California in San Francisco.
The report also recommends telling educators to include outdoor
activities in the learning process, and urging legislators to pass the
Moving Outdoors in Nature Act.
Some say it takes a village to raise a child. The National Wildlife
Federation contends it takes a backyard, a playground, a park.
For the complete report click here.
,
For recommendations for parents, click here.
For a downloadable poster, click here.
Source: National Wildlife Federation
Created August 6, 2010
