Building healthy places for children.

• Position: TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS - Brief article

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To keep children active, reduce obesity and make communities more attractive, smart growth planners are focusing on the importance of playgrounds and open spaces where children can play and grow.

Developments often unintentionally compromise children's health. Playgrounds and parks, open spaces, walkable routes to schools, and places free from auto traffic and pollution are rarely considered critical to a community's design, much less key to a child's health. But research indicates that communities without parks and playgrounds often lead to sedentary children and stressful lives. And the increase in childhood asthma has been attributed to air pollution from freeways and roadways near where some children live and play.

Providing sidewalks, designing paths to school, building parks and playgrounds, and even simply providing open space can improve children's health by making them more active. Children who exercise are at lower risk for obesity and show improved school work and social interactions.

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