Reasons to be Outside

Written by Professor Jan White and produced by Liz Edwards of Muddy Faces.

The science can help us to think more deeply about the question. As part of a series presenting the very many reasons that our youngest children need to be outdoors so much, this booklet attends to what is currently understood about the neuro-physiological aspects of child development and brain/body functioning that require the conditions provided by the outdoor environment - and which are usually limited or absent indoors.

Just being outside has wide-ranging effects on physical and mental wellbeing, and it is a very different place that provides so much for brains, bodies and spirits. For almost all of the long history of human evolution (including of course the ancestors of the first homo sapiens), children and adults spent almost all of each day outside, so our evolution has been significantly shaped by the conditions of these outdoor environments.