| Title |
The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review |
| Design |
Systematic review |
| Participants |
Children aged 2-9 year old |
| Intervention |
Exposure or intervention involved unstructured, free play within nature (forest, green spaces, outdoors, gardens) and included natural elements (highly vegetated, rocks, mud, sand, gardens, forests and ponds or water) |
| Comparator |
Traditional play space, photographs of a forest environment, controlled naturalistic environment, adventure play space, mixed play space |
| Major outcomes |
Physical activity, play behaviour (cognitive play, dramatic play, social play, functional play, constructive play, symbolic play, exploratory play, dramatic play), creativity, behaviour change, emotional behaviour, motor fitness |
| Settings |
Nature play space |
| Main results |
- Consistent results suggest that nature play may positively impact upon children’s PA.
- Nature play had positive impacts on developmental outcomes for children, particularly in the cognitive domains of imagination, creativity and dramatic play
- Physical activity, when comparing nature play to traditional outdoor play spaces, was shown to offer similar PA outcomes
|
| Conclusion |
Nature play had consistent positive impacts on physical activity outcomes and cognitive play behaviours (imaginative and dramatic play). |
| Link |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0229006 |
| Reference |
Dankiw, K. A., Tsiros, M. D., Baldock, K. L., & Kumar, S. (2020). The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review. PLoS ONE, 15(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229006 |
| Title |
Outdoor play and nature connectedness as potential correlates of internalized mental health symptoms among Canadian adolescents |
| Design |
Cross-sectional study |
| Participants |
Canadian adolescents aged 11–15 (n=20697) |
| Exposure |
Time spent outdoor (outdoor play hours / week) |
| Non-exposure |
Those who averaged no time playing outdoors |
| Major outcomes |
Psychosomatic symptoms (having individual psychosomatic symptoms >1/week) |
| Settings |
Outside school hours |
| Main results |
Among girls, spending on average >0.5 h/week outdoors was associated with a 24% (95% CI: 5%, 40%) lower prevalence of high psychosomatic symptoms, compared to those who averaged no time playing outdoors. The same association was not observed in boys. |
| Conclusion |
The study highlighted the potential importance of adolescent engagement with nature as protective for their psychological well-being. It also emphasizes the importance of accounting for sex differences when planning and implementing public mental health initiatives that consider exposure to the outdoors. |
| Link |
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29679604/ |
| Reference |
Piccininni, C., Michaelson, V., Janssen, I., & Pickett, W. (2018). Outdoor play and nature connectedness as potential correlates of internalized mental health symptoms among Canadian adolescents. Preventive Medicine, 112(October 2017), 168–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.04.020 |
