It is commonly believed that nature has positive impacts on children’s health, including physical, mental and social dimensions. This review focuses on how accessibility to, exposure to and engagement with nature affects the mental health of children and teenagers.
The authors examined the prospective relationship between physical activity and incident depression and explored potential moderators.
The majority of adolescent girls fail to meet public health guidelines for physical activity. Engaging mothers in the promotion of physical activity for their daughters may be an important strategy to facilitate behaviour change. The aim of this study was to use the behaviour change wheel (BCW) framework to design the components of an intervention to improve adolescent girls’ physical activity.
Watching television is a common pastime for very young children. High exposure may negatively influence physical and mental health outcomes. Not much is known about how early exposure relates to lifestyle choices in adolescence.
Exposure to nature and natural environments may be beneficial for mental health; however, most population-based studies have been conducted among adults whereas few have focused on adolescents. Researchers aimed to investigate the relationship between both greenness (vegetation) and blue space (water), and depressive symptoms among teenagers in the United States.
Adolescents who spent more time on new media (including social media and electronic devices such as smartphones) were more likely to report mental health issues, and adolescents who spent more time on nonscreen activities (in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, print media, and attending religious services) were less likely.
A growing body of evidence supports the claim that access to safe, natural areas improves health across a wide variety of areas, including heart health, mental health, weight management, ADHD, and stress among children. A concept gaining momentum in this realm is green schoolyards. But what is a green schoolyard?
Studies have shown that natural environments can enhance health and here we build upon that work by examining the associations between comprehensive greenspace metrics and health.
![Participation by being: Teenage girls’ hanging out at the shopping mall as ‘dwelling with’ [the world]](https://www.natureplaywa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/teenage-girls-mall-research-header.png)
In this paper, the author talks about young teenage girls’ hanging out at the shopping mall. The author approaches hanging out as ‘dwelling with’ commercial spaces by thinking of it as 1) a meaningful practical engagement, and as 2) marking and claiming spaces as one’s own. Hanging out with friends often goes on without much reflection, but it is deeply affectual.
Physical activity (PA) and sedentary lifestyle have been widely associated with specific physiological effects in adolescents. However, the relation of physical activity and a sedentary lifestyle with self-perceived health, pain, and well-being is less evident, and sometimes gender differences generate contradictory results.