Posted on April 13th, 2009 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Immune balance in early childhood: The enchanted forest can make a difference
Desiree Brown, my friend and collaborator at Embria Health, came upon information about “forest schools” on a radio broadcast
recently. It was new to her, and she naturally wanted to find out more. Here is just a bit of what she passed along to me on the subject.
A forest school is, as it sounds, an outdoor learning program that takes place in a safe, wooded environment. The forest school concept holds that children in their formative years–under 8 years old–can develop greater confidence, intellectual, social and creative skills by spending structured learning time in a forest. The ability to explore, discover and play freely within a nature setting can be highly beneficial when compared to conventional schools and classrooms. The “forest school” was developed in Sweden and Denmark in the first half of the 20th century. Several forest schools emerged in Wisconsin in that period as well. Now, it appears forest schools have a thriving presence in the United Kingdom.
So what’s the relevance to this blog? Here’s an excerpt from from the UK forest schools site linked above: ”…The study also showed that the forest school children had 25% fewer sick days than the city children. One reason for this is that the air is nearly always better outside than indoors because outside a child is less likely to be exposed to virus and bacteria and not so likely to be infected by other children. Another reason may be that, since stress has been shown to have a negative effect on the immune system, high stress levels may be having a weakening effect on the ability for the city children to resist infection.”
Now, I and many others are of the opinion that exposure to bacteria and viruses early in childhood may help build a well-balanced immune system. So I’m not sure about that statement above. Yet, what is not mentioned is that exposure to the dirt, plants and associated outdoor pathogens may also be helping shape and balance immune systems. Also, I certainly can’t argue with the “stress reduction helping improve the immune system” scenario at all.
