This report summarises emerging evidence on the effects of play restrictions in terms of a) reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the population and b) the detriments to children resulting from the restrictions. An evidence report on Covid-19 and children’s play shows that the benef…

Highlights • Fathers spend a large proportion of their time with their children engaging in play. • This is often in the form of physical play such as rough and tumble. • Fathers’ play frequency increases from infancy and declines as children reach school age. •…

When parents are under stress, household rules about screen time often get abandoned, new University of Guelph research finds. A first of its kind in Canada, the study found parents of young children reporting high levels of life or parenting stress were less likely to monitor and limit their kid…

Humans may have evolved a need to connect with nature, and nature provides substantial cultural and social values to humans. However, quantifying the connection between humans and nature at a global scale remains challenging. We lack answers to fundamental questions: how do humans experience nature…

Key Points Question  Are individual and contextual stressors associated with the use and duration of screen time and screen time combined with food in children aged 7 to 18 months? Findings  In this cross-sectional, population-based study of 1085 children, higher levels of parenting…

Infancy is the foundational period for learning from adults, and the dynamics of the social environment have long been considered central to children’s development. Here, we reveal a novel, naturalistic approach for studying live interactions between infants and adults. Using functional near-i…

BACKGROUND The Amish and Hutterites are U.S. agricultural populations whose lifestyles are remarkably similar in many respects but whose farming practices, in particular, are distinct; the former follow traditional farming practices whereas the latter use industrialized farming practices. The pop…

Physical activity has many well-known health benefits, but its association with lung function in childhood and adolescence is not well understood. A new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by "la Caixa," has for the first time demonstrated an a…

Abstract: Background Body Mass Index (BMI) is a common outcome when assessing associations between childhood overweight and obesity and physical activity patterns. However, the fat and fat-free components of BMI, measured by the Fat Mass Index (FMI) and Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI), may show con…

Abstract Children often substitute one object for another during play. They may substitute a stick for a sword or a box for a car, often favouring substitutes that are shaped like the needed object. The current study looked at the roles of shape and specificity, the degree to which a possible sub…