LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

"The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collecting data on the great benefits of unstructured outdoor recreation. One of the great benefits of unstructured outdoor recreation is that it doesn't cost anything. Because it's free, there's no major economic interest that would finance the research of the benefits of the child-nature connection."

"If kids are out there riding their bikes or walking, they're not burning fossil fuel, they're no bodies captive audience; they're not making money for anybody . . . follow the money! None the less, a growing body of evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression."

"Nature Deficit Disorder describes the human cost of alienation from nature; among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families and communities."

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

For years, James Sallis has been studying why some children and adults are more active then others. He is program director of the Active Living Research Program for the Robert Wood Research Foundation, a multi-year effort to discover how to design recreational facilities and whole communities so they stimulate people of all ages to be more active.

Based on previous studies, we can definitively say that the best predictor of preschool children's activity is simply being outdoors, says Sallis, "and that an indoor sedentary, childhood is linked to mental health problems."

The idea that natural landscapes, or at least gardens, can be therapeutic and restorative is, in fact, an ancient one that has filtered down through the ages. Over two-thousand years ago, Chinese Taoists created gardens and greenhouses they believed to be beneficial for health. By 1699, the book  English Gardener advised the reader to spend "spare time in the garden, either digging, setting out, or weeding; there is no better way to preserve your health.