Many of the challenges that we face in our world today can be addressed by ensuring that increasing activity in Green Areas
Research carried out in “Nature, Childhood, Health and Life Pathways” by By Jules Pretty, Caroline Angus, Madeleine Bain, Jo Barton, Valerie Gladwell, Rachel Hine, Sarah Pilgrim, Gavin Sandercock and Martin Sellens) suggests ten priorities for action to improve the well-being of children and adults:
- Encourage a better understanding of the long-term outcomes of parental and social connections during ages 0-5.
- Encourage more outdoor free play for children aged 6-11.
- Develop better provisions for teenage children aged 12-18 to congregate in their own communities.
- Encourage GPs and other medical professionals to accept that nature and the outdoors deliver important immediate and long-term health benefits.
- Encourage planners to incorporate access to green space as a fundamental right for all people.
- Encourage schools to incorporate use of gardens, allotments and woodlands as a regular part of the curriculum.
- Evaluate the outcomes of outdoor play and green education on the cognitive capacities of children and their long-term health.
- Assess the full economic benefits (personal and public) of a shift in life pathways from unhealthy to healthy for all age groups.
- Assess how policies and institutions can best encourage widespread behaviour change that becomes a matter of preference and choice rather than enforcement.
- Establish a national priority in all areas of public policy for all modes of physical activity in all types of green space.