Kids now spending less time outdoors than prison inmates… total detachment from the natural world breeds mental illness
by: Amy Goodrich
NaturalNews.com
Thursday, April 07, 2016
Are our children becoming tech-obsessed couch potatoes who are totally detached from the outdoor world? According to a new survey, funded by laundry detergent Persil/Omo, children spend less time outdoors than high-security prisoners.
In 2014, an article published on the website of Nature Play SA – a nonprofit devoted to advocacy for outside play time – reported that 87 percent of Australian children spend more time playing indoors than outdoors.
Griffin Longley, the CEO of Nature Play SA, was the first to make the comparison between prisoners and children. The thought inspired James Hayhurst, Persil’s global equity director, to commission their own independent research.
They questioned over 12,000 parents of children between the ages of 5 and 12 years old in 10 different countries and confirmed the statement.
“Sadly, it is true,” says Hayhurst. “Although parents recognize and value the importance of play, a variety of factors such as lack of time, lack of safe places to play, and time spent on scheduled activities, combine to limit how much time kids spend playing.”
Prisoners in high-security facilities are allowed one to two hours of outside time, while most of our children don’t even come close to an hour. The study found that almost one-third of children in the UK play outside for 30 minutes or less, and one in five don’t go outdoors at all.
The Rest…HERE
