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Urban children's connections to nature and environmental behaviors differ with age and gender.

ABSTRACT: Global conservation is increasingly reliant on young people forming meaningful connections with urban nature. However, interactions with nearby nature do not inspire all children and adolescents living in cities to act pro-environmentally. Our survey of over 1,000 school students from Sydney, Australia, revealed that 28% of respondents maintained strong nature connections. Younger students (aged 8-11) were more strongly connected with nature than their older peers (aged 12-14), and environmental behaviors were negatively associated with increasing age. Differences between boys and girls were less consistent, resulting in part from differential functioning of questionnaire items. Regardless, girls were more willing than boys to volunteer for conservation. Our findings suggest that policies designed to strengthen urban children's nature connections will be most effective if they explicitly address the "adolescent dip" and other emerging demographic patterns, thereby ensuring all young people reap the health, wellbeing, and conservation benefits of connecting with nature.

SUBMITTER: Keith RJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8321113 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:ObjectivesTo quantify the link between four different types of social ties and objective measures of abdominal and general obesity, and to explore their inter-relationships in association with obesity using a gender-sensitive analysis.MethodsA cross-sectional analysis of 28,238 adults (45-85 years) from the baseline Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging Comprehensive cohort (2012-15). Social ties (marital status, living arrangement, social network size, and social participation) and measured anthropometry (body mass index, waist circumference) were analyzed using linear and logistic regression models with interaction terms conditioned on known confounders.ResultsWe found that being single, widowed or divorced/separated was associated with worse anthropometric outcomes in women, including higher odds of both abdominal and general obesity, and that associations were enhanced when combined with limited social participation, lone-living and greater social network size. Few clear associations were observed in men. Limited social participation (no social activities at least once/month) among women was associated with larger waist circumference (+4.19 cm [95% CI: 1.86, 6.52]) and higher odds of both abdominal and general obesity. By contrast, associations appeared to be reversed in men: lone-living and smaller social networks were associated with lower odds of obesity, compared to co-living and larger social networks. We also found that more regular social participation can potentially mitigate the adverse associations between non-partnership (single, divorced) and obesity in women. Overall, the combined influence of two types of social tie deficits on excess weight measures was more pronounced in women than men.ConclusionsResults highlight the importance of considering how the role of social ties for obesity prevention may differ for women and men. Frequent social participation and number of social contacts may matter for assessing whether divorced, single or lone-living older women are at risk of obesity while living arrangement and social contacts may matter for obesity in men.

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Urban children's connections to nature and environmental behaviors differ with age and gender.

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