Pediatricians on the Importance of Play:
Access to Quality Playspaces Fosters Healthy Childhood Development

In May 2005, KaBOOM! commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a nationally representative online survey among pediatricians to understand how they feel about the importance of play in a child's life. A total of 355 pediatricians participated in this study. The sample was drawn from the Harris Poll Online (HPOL) Physician Specialty Panel. This sample provides an error rate of +/-5.23 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. The following provides a snapshot of their answers to a series of questions on the topic.

• Three out of four (75 percent of) pediatricians surveyed report that the amount of time their young patients spend on unstructured play has decreased in the past five years.
• According to the pediatricians surveyed, children are spending a significant amount of time in front of the computer or television. Almost all (97 percent) of the doctors surveyed cited this as a contributing factor.
• Other reasons for this decline include the availability of organized sports or activities (75 percent), that parents are not aware of the benefits of unstructured play (57 percent), lack of quality play spaces within walking distance to home (50 percent), and reduction in school-based recess time (44 percent).
• The majority of the pediatricians believe that unstructured play helps build children's social skills and confidence (96 percent), helps kids from becoming overweight (89 percent), and helps kids improve problem-solving skills (82 percent).
• The majority of the pediatricians (88 percent) believe that the availability of quality play spaces for unstructured play is important to children's overall development.
• Alarmingly, almost all the pediatricians surveyed (99 percent) believe that obesity among their patients has increased over the past 5 years.
• Almost all (99 percent) of the pediatricians surveyed believe that unstructured play has an important role in reducing childhood obesity.

"It is vital to the development of our children that they get a great start in life — and play is an incredibly important aspect of that," said Dr. Wendy S. Masi, dean of Nova Southeastern University's Mailman Segal Institute of Childhood Studies.

"Play has a very unique power and effect on later health as well as intellectual, social, and emotional development. This partnership represents a wonderful example of how communities, nonprofits and corporations can come together to ensure that all children grow up in a safe, healthy, playful environment," Masi added.

Download a PDF of the research summary.