Go Play Outside!

Those are the three words that American children do not hear enough. Michelle Obama talks about battling childhood obesity. Chicago Wilderness runs the Leave No Child Inside project. A whole organization called the Children & Nature Network now exists to encourage and support people and organizations working to connect young people with nature.

Results of a recent University of Michigan study show that our brains work better when we have regular exposure to nature. This echoes the results of many other studies that say there are abundant reasons to spend more time in nature. Health. Kids are less likely to have attention-deficit disorder. Hospital patients get well faster. And... there is an ever-growing list of reasons to spend time outdoors. The Association for Psychological Science has a nice summary of the Michigan study on their website.

The effects of nature on the brain are especially important during the years from birth through age 11, when many of the basic patterns and processes in the brain are being formed. The term videophilia has been coined by researchers to describe the new state we are living in. They define videophilia as meaning "the new human tendency to focus on sedentary activites involving electronic media."

Videophilia has been a trend since 1987 -- about the time that video games, home movies, VCRs, home computers, etc started to appear. Since 1987 the trend has also been that there are fewer visits to local, state & national parks. There are fewer hikers than before 1987. There are fewer campers. You get the picture.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but a good start would seem to be "Go Play Outside!"