Nature and Children's Health

Access and exposure to nature are critical to wellbeing, and important for healthy development from a young age, and now there is evidence that nature exposure has a positive impact on children’s health.

Daily outdoor play for children is encouraged by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and even the earliest health practitioners and philosophers held a “nature benefit assumption,” assuming that being in nature was generally good for humans. However, existing evidence was unclear on the independent effect of nature exposure on child health.

According to a systematic review of 296 studies published in Pediatrics, the presence of green spaces near homes and schools is strongly associated with improved physical activity and cognitive, behavioral, and mental health outcomes in children. The strongest evidence for type of nature exposure was residential green spaces, and the researchers noted that not all time spent outside is equal: a parking lot is not a park, and an urban playground without natural elements is not a garden.

Some of the data looked at the effects for children from historically marginalized communities, which lack of nature exposure disproportionately affects, and showed that the benefits of nature exposure may be even more pronounced for them.