British Initiatives Use Nature to Improve Children’s Health

Daily Mail – June 27, 2009
By Sarah Stacey

Emma Leyfield, nine, loves playing outside with her brother Ollie, seven, and also on her own. ‘It’s my own secret world. I make up stories and have adventures.
I make flower soup and special mud pies.’

Getting ‘really muddy’ is among Emma’s top pleasures but, according to experts, many children in the West are increasingly alienated from the natural world, due to the lure of high-tech entertainment, and parents’ and schools’ fear of accidents, stranger danger – and dirty clothes.

This couch-potato culture has led not only to epidemic obesity but also to mental health problems, says GP Dr William Bird, founder of the Green Gym movement and an adviser to the Department of Health.

‘The human race has survived in the natural world for 10,000 generations. Disconnecting from our habitual environment challenges our sense of identity and is a significant factor in problems including childhood depression, stress and antisocial behaviour.’

One boy in ten and one girl in 18, from age five to ten, has a diagnosed mental health disorder. More than 40,000 children now use antidepressants – a sharp rise over the past five years, he says.

Children under 12 who have contact with nature, particularly wild nature, gain ‘a sense of freedom that creates a source of independence and inner strength that can be drawn upon for the rest of their lives’, he says.

All children’s behaviour benefits significantly after playing in a natural environment, and the symptoms of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) improve threefold.

Emma’s mother Lucia is passionate about letting her children experience boredom. ‘So many children are endlessly stimulated, but, if they say they’re bored, just turfing them outdoors throws them back on to their own resources.

'They’re grumpy at first but they soon get creative, making burrows and organising scavenger hunts. Ollie is only seven but he told me: “I feel like I’m in my own time when I’m in the fields”.’

It’s paradoxical that ‘just as a growing body of research links our mental, physical and spiritual health directly – and positively – to our association with nature, so many sections of society are teaching young people to avoid direct experience of it,’ writes American author Richard Louv, whose book Last Child in the Woods will be published here on Wednesday.

So disturbed is Louv at the rise of ‘nature-deficit disorder’ that he and other experts have created the Children & Nature Network (childrenandnature.org) ‘to give every child in every community a wide range of opportunities to experience nature directly’.

Many organisations here are playing their part. In addition to a Wild Child initiative, the National Trust has launched a Food Glorious Food campaign (foodgloriousfood.org.uk), supported by the Medical Research Council, to encourage children to grow their own vegetables. You can pick up free seeds (lettuce, rocket and pumpkins) at National Trust events nationwide until October.

The Leyfields grow all the staples plus a handful of exotic varieties: ‘This year, it’s purple carrots, asparagus-peas and stripy aubergines,’ says Emma. But flowers are her favourites, particularly snowdrops, ‘because I like the way the flowers hang down like a fairy’s skirt’.

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