Country-dwellers miss out on the bustle and bright lights – but getting back to nature is good for everything from diabetes to depression
WAS it ever as good as this? Children bounding across a meadow or collecting nuts in the woods, the very picture of health and happiness. The idea that close contact with nature is the passport to good mental and physical health certainly runs deep, finding expression in the poetry of William Wordsworth and the hippy movement of the 1960s. The theme has recently been taken up by author Richard Louv in his best-selling book Last Child in the Woods, in which he warns that complaints like obesity, depression and asthma are on the rise due to our children’s divorce from nature. But where is the evidence?
Until recently, it had been somewhat tenuous. Now carefully controlled research from the last few years suggests the Romantic ideals do hold some truth, with studies of thousands of people revealing that natural surroundings really do have a significant impact on our well-being.
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There is no doubt that younger generations already spend less time in the countryside than any of our ancestors would have done, and over the same period of time, there have been huge changes in the population’s health. Childhood obesity, for example, has risen steadily over the last few decades. A child’s weight might be expected to correlate with the amount of time they spend playing outside, rather than sitting in front of a screen – but does it matter whether their surroundings contain a lot of greenery?
To find out, at the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues tracked the body mass index (BMI) of 3831 children over two years. They found that children living in greener areas had a lower BMI and gained weight more slowly over the study period. Sixteen-year-olds, for example, were roughly 6 kilograms lighter in the greenest compared to the most urban neighbourhoods ().
Importantly, the effect was independent of the socio-economic status of the children’s families, which might have had an impact on their diet, and the housing density, which might indicate how much outdoor space was available for playing in – be it a leafy park or a concrete play area or car park. Bell’s team concludes that children are more likely to play physically and exercise if their surroundings include plenty of green space.
When it comes to problems such as asthma, depression and heart disease, evidence is more tenuous. If people living in green areas are more likely to exercise, you might expect associated health benefits, like a more robust immune system and a strong heart. There is also the possibility that we are better able to relax in the countryside, which should bring its own physiological benefits.
One of the pioneers in this area has been , head of the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M University, College Station. In one experiment in the early 90s, he showed a group of volunteers an upsetting film of someone suffering an injury. He then split the group into two, showing each half a further video: one of typical country scenes, the other of typical city scenes. Based on measurements such as blood pressure, Ulrich found that the volunteers who saw the natural scenes recovered more quickly from the stressful impact of the first film than those shown quiet urban sites ().
Since then, numerous studies have examined the effect of more direct contact with nature, with similar results. A relaxing stroll through the woods lowers cortisol levels, pulse rate, blood pressure and sympathetic nervous system activity more than a walk through pleasant urban areas (). Country walks have even been found to enhance the activity of human natural killer cells and other aspects of the immune system (). All of which could contribute to good health, but since few of these studies looked at the effects of exposure to nature over longer periods, the long-term effects remain speculative.
Some encouraging evidence came last year, with a survey examining the medical records of 345,143 people registered with 96 Dutch doctors’ practices. The results showed that the prevalence of 15 common illnesses depended on the amount of green space within 1 kilometre of the patients’ homes. The list included depression and anxiety, asthma, heart disease, diabetes, bone and muscle pains, headaches, diabetes and respiratory infections (see chart) ().
Early deaths
Depression fell from 32 cases per thousand, in the least green areas, to 24 cases per thousand in the most green areas, for example. The same was also true for physical complaints: respiratory infections fell from 84 to 68 cases per 1000. These differences are comparable to the relative rates of illness in the young and the old, says Jolanda Maas at the Vu University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Ultimately, natural surroundings seem to lower the risk of death at any point in someone’s life, according to a recent study that looked at the causes of death in 366,348 people below retirement age who died in England between 2001 and 2005. Controlling for socio-economic factors, and for additional environmental factors such as air pollution, the team found that mortality due to ill health was 5 per cent lower in the greenest areas than in the least green areas (). The results were more pronounced when the team examined the health gap between the richest and poorest people in their study. In the least green areas, the mortality rate of the poorest people was nearly twice that of the richest. In the greenest areas, however, this ratio dropped to roughly 1.4, suggesting that green space may buffer some of the stressful effects of poverty.
“Natural surroundings reduce the health gap between the rich and poor by buffering the stressful effects of poverty”
Precisely why we seem to be more attuned to natural scenes than to peaceful urban environments remains a thornier issue, however. Psychologists and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, put it down to the fact that nature offers us “soft fascinations” like moving clouds, dancing flames, rustling leaves or gurgling water that restore our concentration by allowing our attention to wander. Built environments, on the other hand, constantly require us to focus on specific tasks, such as navigating our way through traffic or reading street signs. The same applies when we watch TV or play a computer game.
This preference for nature probably arose deep in our evolutionary history, says biologist of Harvard University. According to his “biophilia” hypothesis, our brains evolved to process the stimuli our ancestors would have faced in nature, leading to a hard-wired disposition to respond positively to the natural environment. With brains less well suited to the sights and sounds of human-made environments, we may find these surroundings more stressful and tiring. Recent brain scans support this view, revealing that disparate brain regions communicate with each other more easily, and therefore process sensory information more efficiently, when we consider natural scenes ().
This restorative effect may explain why a short walk in the park improves the symptoms of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (see “Mother Nature’s classroom”). The greater relaxation would also bring the numerous physiological benefits which might stave off disease and mental health problems.
Whatever the reason for nature’s beneficial impact on our health, these results should not be ignored. “While it is important to be careful not to overstate the research, we know enough to act,” says Louv. , an environmental psychologist at the University of Colorado, Denver, agrees. “Although the number of studies is still small, the positive effects keep turning up with striking consistency,” she says. She also points out that interventions need not be expensive and are unlikely to pose any dangers, “so we don’t need the kind of evidence base that you need for a new drug”.
Studies have found, for example, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they have a view of greenery outside their window (). Even a few house plants or a well-tended garden may be of some benefit, with recent research finding that children are more resilient to stressful events if they have more greenery in and surrrounding their houses (). We should also push for urban parks to be maintained, and encourage authorities to plant trees on city streets.
A large-scale migration back to the country would be too drastic, though. “What worked in the past may not apply now,” says Louv. Instead, he thinks we should look for ways to bring more nature to the cities. “We are rapidly moving into a very different era in which we may need to recreate nature in ways that fit with urban life.”
Mother nature’s classroom
A child’s concentration appears to improve when they are exposed to nature. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concentrated better after a walk in the park – about as well as if they had taken standard medication (). Walking through quiet and pleasant areas of town with less greenery offered no such benefits. Based on these results, Faber Taylor says she feels strongly that time spent in natural surroundings “might at the very least supplement current therapies” for treating ADHD. “It might even work as a stand-alone treatment for children with very mild symptoms.”
Being taught in the great outdoors may benefit other children, too. Forest kindergartens that hold classes in the woods, come rain or shine, are becoming increasingly popular throughout northern Europe. The early evidence has been encouraging. A study conducted for Peter Häfner’s doctorate at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, for example, found that children who attended forest kindergartens can concentrate better and are more motivated than their peers who went to conventional nurseries. They also have more advanced social skills.
