Playing With Your Child's Health

 A new study published in Britain, reveals that the type of play in which your child engages in will help determine his or her future health. 

According to research presented at the Psychological Society's Annual Conference, a study conducted at the University of Ulster showed that different types of play as children had a significant impact on a variety of determinants of adult health. Children who were allowed the time and freedom to play had significantly higher levels of overall health than those who as children had play curtailed or restricted.

The study divided play into four different types, these being: active play, playing alone, play with technology and creative play. Each of these types was associated in its own particular way with adult health.

Creative play for instance, generally led to adults who had healthier diets and engaged in more health engendering behaviors such as getting regular exercise. Those who had been involved in more active play also had better health status as adults and had healthier lifestyles overall.

Unsurprisingly, those children who had only limited opportunities for play or faced restrictions on play were more likely to suffer from obesity and weight issues as adults. These same participants were also less likely to lead healthy lifestyles overall.

In today's hectic world, play can seem a waste of time to those focused on task management and efficiency. But, what this study shows is that allowing children time and space to play creatively and actively will have a significant impact on their health as adults.

Giving you children the best therefore can mean letting them have time to just be creative or to run around without the imposition of too much structure. Trying to teach them to recite Shakespeare at three might therefore be counterproductive. As a parent we always want to give our children the best of everything, however, sometimes this might mean just laying off a little.

This study further suggests that policy makers need to put a bigger value on play time for children. Doing away with physical activity or recess time in order to pack in more academics is not necessarily going to help your child later in life. In fact, by denying our children access to time and space for play, we might be doing them a serious disservice down the line.

The bottom line therefore is that if we want to reduce the obesity epidemic in our society and give our children the best chance for developing healthy attitudes and habits, than allowing ample amounts of time for play is one of the best things we can do. There'll be plenty of time for efficiency planning later on.