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Nearly 75% of kids in the UK are outdoors less than prison inmates

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A new research study has found that nearly 75% of the children in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) are outside less than the typical prison inmate and that 20% of them never venture outside at all. This stunning study was funded by the British government and its findings were released this past February.

One of the amazing discoveries the researchers made were that 10% of the children they talked to had not been outside of their house in more than a year to play or to visit a park or a beach. Experts have continued to warn parents everywhere that playing outside is crucial to a child’s development and their ability to be outside with their peers and to just be a kid.

Parents in the UK blame several things including being fearful of letting their children just go outside and to play unsupervised. They claim that it is dangerous and that there really aren’t that many green places for children to play in the UK. The most damaging finding, that has long been in everyone’s awareness but is seldom talked about, is the addiction of the last couple of generations to electronics and video games.

One such childhood expert, Mark Sears, of the Wild Network declared that, “The truth is that we are enclosing our children. We are stifling their ability to be free, to be at their best as children and it is having significant impacts.”

Sears also sees this desire for children to avoid the outside to be causing mental and emotional challenges as well as being a major factor in the obesity levels of the last couple of generations. The government has been trying to encourage children to get outside with free trips to certain national parks but the effort will have to entail more than that. It has become an entrenched cultural characteristic and behavior that needs to be changed through action on the individual level.

The study involved over 2,000 parents with children between the ages of 5-12. They found that these children, nearly 75% of them, were outside less than an hour every day and most of that was going to and from school and other activities. In the UK, prison inmates are allowed outside for an hour everyday to walk or exercise so the children are spending less time outside that the average prison inmate.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay