Half of Kids in the US Kept Indoors by Parents

After analyzing a nationally-representative sample of 8,950 children of preschool age, a team of investigators from the Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington in Seattle (UWS) determined that nearly half of these kids are not taken out to play by their parents daily.

Experts recommend that young children be taken outside to play under adult supervision whenever possible, since being out in the open, exposed to fresh air, has a wide range of beneficial effects on their bodies and their minds.

The situation was especially worse for kids who were not part of regular child-care arrangements, other than their parents. In other words, those who were not in daycare, or who had no babysitter, were less likely to be taken outside to play.

“For children [in this situation], 42 percent did not go outside daily,” scientists with the joint group wrote in a paper published in the April 2 online issue of the esteemed journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

One of the most interesting aspects in the new research was that the amount of time children spent outside was found to be unrelated to how much TV they watched, how much money their parents made, or the perceived safety of their neighborhoods.

Usually, these are factors that significantly influence the way parents think about taking their kids outside. Oddly enough, scientists found that the amount of time parents themselves spent exercising had an important influence on how they regarded their children's outdoor activities.

Another important factor was the number of friends and playmates the children themselves have. At the same time, the group found that boys were more likely to go out and play than girls, LiveScience reports.

The research team also found that Asian mothers were nearly 50 percent less likely to go out with their children to local playgrounds. A similar situation was found in Black mothers, 41 percent of which reported not taking their kids out to play on a daily basis.

In the case of Hispanic mothers, experts reported that these women were 20 percent less likely than White mothers to go out with their children.