Worship the sun, live forever

My neighbor: she'll outlive me

Women who sunbathe regularly live longer and enjoy health benefits which outweigh the risk of skin, according to research presented at the Swedish Society of Medicine's annual conference.

Studies of the sun exposure habits of 40,000 women in southern Sweden have found that the health benefits of spending extended periods in the sun outweigh the negatives, such as the increased risk for skin cancer.

Researchers claim that exposure to the sun is attributed to helping against blood clots, which are twice as common in the darker periods of the year than in the summer, the newspaper reported.

Furthermore the incidence of type 2 diabetes also shows seasonal variations, with the winter boom in cases attributed to a lack of vitamin D.

Chief physician Håkan Olsson at the division of oncology at Lund University argued that he was not alone in claiming "that there can be other factors other than the sun which affect the risks for developing malignant melanomas," and that exposure to the sun could help protect against a slew of other conditions.

Everybody get outside. Now!

Are you worried about your child's health and performance in school. Show him the back door.

This is disturbing: Children aged 8 to 18 today spend more time than ever using electronic media indoors — seven and a half hours a day, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In response to the No Child Left Behind law, 30 percent of kindergarten classrooms have eliminated recess to make more room for academics.

So what?

The resulting lack of physical activity and a growing disconnect with the natural environment have been linked in a host of studies to obesity and obesity-related diseases in children and adults, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, as well as vitamin D deficiency, osteoporosis, stress, depression, attention deficit disorder and myopia. Dr. Daphne Miller, a family physician affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, calls them “diseases of indoor living.”

A consortium of physicians, health insurers, naturalists and government agencies have banded together to help more people of all ages and economic strata engage in health-enhancing physical activity in parks and other natural environments.

Do we really need "experts" to tell us to go outside and play?

Maybe so. A growing number of like-minded doctors have begun writing specific prescriptions for outdoor activity, providing patients with maps, guidelines and programs of gradually increased activity based on their abilities.

As for its health and educational benefits, the National Wildlife Federation cites scientific findings that outdoor play enhances fitness, raises blood levels of vitamin D (which in turn protects against bone loss, heart disease, diabetes and other health problems), improves distance vision, lowers the risk of nearsightedness, reduces symptoms of stress and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, raises scores on standardized tests and improves students’ critical-thinking skills.

Tell the kids that a swing set is a hot new app.