| Pass
It On - Outdoor Mentors
Fact
Sheet
Why Kids Need Nature
Kids
at Risk
Kids have a basic right to a healthy, whole childhood. In fact,
with major advances in medicine, education and other fields, kids
today should enjoy a higher quality of life than ever before. But
chronic health conditions--such as obesity, diabetes and depression--have
reached alarming rates, affecting a growing number of kids.
-
More than a third of American children and adolescents–17
million--are obese or at risk for obesity.
-
60% of obese 5- to 10-year-old children already have at least
one risk factor for heart disease.
-
The number of kids living with a chronic disease has more than
quadrupled since 1960, from 1.8% to nearly 8%.
-
The number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes, including children,
has risen at an alarming rate over the past 50 years, from 1.5
million to 17.9 million.
-
A 2003 survey, published in the journal Psychiatric Services,
found the rate at which American children are prescribed antidepressants
almost doubled in five years.
Kids
Indoors
Kids are becoming increasingly disconnected from the great outdoors.
Heavily-scheduled kids travel from school to organized sports or
activities and then indoors. Along the way, the outdoors has become
a place many kids merely visit.
- In
1969, 50% of U.S. children walked or biked to school. In 2004,
less than 13% did.
-
The area in which children are free to roam has shrunk by 89%
in the past 20 years.
After 50 years of steady increases, per capita visits to U.S.
national parks declined by 25% from 1987 to 2003.
-
Nature-based recreation as a whole been declining every year since
the 1980s, for a total decline of roughly 25%.
-
The U.S. loses one million acres of forest each year. The U.S.
Forest Service reports that we have lost 13 million forestland
acres since 1992 and estimates that 23 million more will be gone
by 2050.
A
growing body of evidence suggests that these two trends—the
decline in children’s health and their separation from nature—are
linked. If we fail to recognize this link and reconnect kids with
nature, we shortchange their health and happiness now—and
risk creating a generation of adults that is less healthy, productive
and able to value and protect our country’s natural resources.
Now is the time to act.
|
