Free Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv Page A

antidote to emotional and physical stress nature can be. Especially now.
    A 2003 survey, published in the journal
Psychiatric Services
, found the rate at which American children are prescribed antidepressants almost doubled in five years; the steepest increase—66 percent—was among preschool children. “A number of factors acting together or independently may have led to escalated use of antidepressants among children and adolescents,” said Tom Delate, director of research at Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefits group that conducted the survey. “These factors include increasing rates of depression in successive age groups, a growing awareness of and screening for depression by pediatricians and assumptions that the effectiveness experienced by adults using antidepressant medications will translate to children and adolescents.” The growth in such prescriptions written for children occurred eventhough antidepressants were never approved for children younger than eighteen—with the exception of Prozac, which was approved as a treatment for children in 2001, after the rise in juvenile prescriptions began. The findings were announced a month after the Food and Drug Administration asked pharmaceutical companies to add explicit product labeling warnings about alleged links between antidepressants and suicidal behavior and thoughts, especially among children. In 2004, data analysis by Medco Health Solutions, the nation’s largest prescription benefit manager, found that between 2000 and 2003 there was a 49 percent increase in the use of psychotropic drugs—antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants. For the first time, spending on such drugs, if medications for attention disorders are included, surpassed spending on antibiotics and asthma medications for children.
    Although countless children who suffer from mental illness and attention disorders do benefit from medication, the use of nature as an alternative, additional, or preventive therapy is being overlooked. In fact, new evidence suggests that the need for such medications is intensified by children’s disconnection from nature. Although exposure to nature may have no impact on the most severe depressions, we do know that nature experiences can relieve some of the everyday pressures that may lead to childhood depression. I’ve mentioned the Ulrich study and a few others that focused on adults; in
The Human Relationship with Nature
, Peter Kahn points to the findings of over one hundred studies that confirm that one of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress reduction.
    Cornell University environmental psychologists reported in 2003 that a room with a view of nature can help protect children against stress, and that nature in or around the home appears to be a significant factor in protecting the psychological well-being of children in rural areas. “Our study finds that life’s stressful events appear not to cause as much psychological distress in children who live in high-nature conditions compared with children who live in low-nature conditions,” according to Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmentalanalysis in the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell. “And the protective impact of nearby nature is strongest for the most vulnerable children—those experiencing the highest levels of stressful life events.”
    Wells and colleague Gary Evans assessed the degree of nature in and around the homes of rural children in grades three through five. They found that children with more nature near their homes received lower ratings than peers with less nature near their homes on measures of behavioral conduct disorders, anxiety, and depression. Children with more nature near their homes also rated themselves higher than their corresponding peers on a global measure of self-worth. “Even in a rural setting with a relative abundance of green landscape, more [nature] appears to be better when it comes to