Now, more than ever, we need nature as a balancing agent.

Quite simply, when we deny our children nature, we deny them beauty.

If a child never sees the stars, never has meaningful encounters with other species, never experiences the richness of nature, what happens to that child?

Unlike television, reading does not swallow the senses or dictate thought. Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination. Can you remember the wonder you felt when first reading The Jungle Book or Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn? Kipling’s world within a world; Twain’s slow river, the feel of freedom and sand on the secret island, and in the depths of the cave?

To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.

This seems clear enough: When truly present in nature, we do use all our senses at the same time, which is the optimum state of learning.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that the number of overweight adult Americans increased over 60 percent between 1991 and 2000. According to CDC data, the U.S. population of overweight children between ages two and five increased by almost 36 percent from 1989 to 1999.