{"id":832385,"date":"2026-11-12T15:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T15:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/832385\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T15:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T15:44:09","slug":"weekly-park-trips-boost-childrens-mental-health-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/832385\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly park trips boost children&#8217;s mental health, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was thought &#8220;physical activity, cognitive benefits, social interaction, parent-child interaction and bonding, and play opportunities&#8221; helped those with better social-emotional development, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mark Ferguson, of the university, said: &#8220;Our research suggests encouraging children to visit parks and playgrounds at least once a week could be a practical way to support their emotional wellbeing, social skills and mental health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But, for this to work fairly, communities need good-quality parks that are safe, accessible and welcoming to families from all backgrounds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added: &#8220;Parks give children space to be physically active, which is known to support mental and physical health, as well as helping adventurous and imaginative play to build confidence and independence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We believe parks could be more than places to play, but an important resource for children&#8217;s healthy development.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was thought &#8220;physical activity, cognitive benefits, social interaction, parent-child interaction and bonding, and play opportunities&#8221; helped those&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-832385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}