I’m not a doctor, but I do sit near one in The Atlantic’s New York office. So you can trust me to know that MD-in-residence James Hamblin is on to something when he writes in the magazine’s October issue about the rising appreciation among physicians for the health benefits of parks and green space. Hamblin writes of “a small but growing group of health-care professionals who are essentially medicalizing nature”:
At his office in Washington, D.C., Robert Zarr, a pediatrician, writes prescriptions for parks. He pulls out a prescription pad and scribbles instructions—which park his obese or diabetic or anxious or depressed patient should visit, on which days, and for how long—just as though he were prescribing medication.
Seems the medical community has finally caught up with insights made by the urban landscape community 150 years ago. In 1865, Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park design fame called it “a scientific fact” that natural “is favorable to the health and vigor of men.” (And women!) Olmsted jumped the gun on the whole “fact” thing, but time and a whole bunch of modern behavioral research on the nature-health link has proved him wise.
[For more of this story, written by Eric Jaffe, go to http://www.citylab.com/weather...urban-nature/411331/]
Comments (0)