Subject: INS story: Calls for a Prescription for Outdoor Time for Kids

Public News Service-IA

March 05, 2010

Calls for a Prescription for Outdoor Time for Kids

DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa doctors are joining 200 national groups in asking the U.S. Surgeon General to make more time outdoors a national health priority for children. The United States is battling high rates of child obesity, which a new study says is largely because the average child is so sedentary.

Kevin Coyle, vice president for education and training with the National Wildlife Federation, says research from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average American child spends more than seven hours a day staring at television or computer screens.

"That's really a very shocking number, when you consider that many kids are spending less than a few minutes a day playing outdoors."

Coyle says they're asking parents to build a "green hour" into each day, at least sixty minutes daily devoted to outdoor play.

"Just simple things like taking a walk, playing in the backyard, backyard scavenger hunts, getting out and doing some fishing."

Many believe that too much screen time also has a social cost, he adds.

"Kids are not getting out and learning how to play with one another and form partnerships and to work with each other in teams and that kind of thing."

While kids in Iowa may have more opportunities for outdoor activity than in many other states, the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled over the last three decades. Coyle says that's only one symptom of less outdoor play time. He says too much screen time has also led to increases in nearsightedness, attention-deficit issues, and vitamin D deficiency.

More ideas for outdoor activities can be found at greenhour.org

The Kaiser study is at www.kff.org

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