"Remember playing outside until your mom called you in for dinner?"

     I've been exploring this type of information for weeks now and have posted information that I think is most prominent, relevant, and interesting. Feel free to post any comments you may have or what you think is interesting.

Health Benefits
National Wildlife Federation

"Remember playing outside until mom called you in for dinner? Today's kids probably won't." 

"Our kids are out of shape, tuned out and stressed out, because they're missing something essential to their health and development: connection to the natural world."

"In the last two decades, childhood has moved indoors. The average American boy or girl spends just four to seven minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than seven hours each day in front of an electronic screen."

• "Childhood obesity rates have more than doubled the last 20 years"

• "The United States has become the largest consumer of ADHD medications in the world"

• "Pediatric Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen precipitously"

"Health Benefits." National Wildlife Federation, 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2010.

Healthy nature healthy people:
'contact with nature' as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations
Cecily Maller, Townsend, Pryor, Peter Brown and Lawrence St Leger

• "Research has shown that too much artificial stimulation and an existence spent in purely human environments may cause exhaustion and produce a loss of vitality and health"

• "The psychological response to nature involves feelings of pleasure, sustained attention or interest, 'relaxed wakefulness', and diminution of negative emotions such as anger and anxiety"

• "Empirical, theoretical, and anecdoral evidence demonstrates contact with nature positively impacts outlook on life and stress-reduction"

Cecily Maller, Townsend, Pryor, Peter Brown and Lawrence St Leger. "Healthy nature healthy people: 'contact with nature' as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations." Oxford Journals 21.1 (2005): 45-54. Health Promotion International. Web. 1 Dec. 2010.

Spending time in nature, a natural remedy for ADHD 
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reported in Scienceblog


Studies suggest that some children may even be able to substitute ADHD medications with spending time in nature.

"Spending time in nature, a natural remedy for ADHD." eartheasy, 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2010.


     If you want to learn more about these claims, the first two of the three articles will provide you with dozens of sources and links to the research that support them. The title of the articles are links.