Page 22 - August 2016 WN complete final version

KAMELADJENEF/ISTOCK

Children feel it
instinctively: we are
designed to be
connected to nature

Born to be wild Dr William Bird,
MBE is an expert
Our hunter-gatherer past designed us to move around outdoors, in groups, with a sense
of purpose. We’re still like that now, which is why modern life makes us ill – and why on the effects of
getting back in touch with nature makes us well again. Dr William Bird reports
nature on health.

He is founder of
intelligenthealth.
co.uk

Depression. Diabetes. Obesity. As a doctor I see chronic Then, just two and a half hours ago, agriculture starts. We’re
diseases every day. They are part of modern life. And they still outdoors – and in fact most of us are still hunter-gatherers
have grown as we have become more and more ‘modern’ – but we start to have herds and then, later still, we start

– or, to put it another way, more and more sedentary, more growing things in the ground.

disconnected from nature. Could this disconnection be one of the The first cities come along an hour ago. So think about those

main causes? 24 hours: this is just an hour. And still people are active. Then

I’m lucky enough to be editing the Oxford Textbook of Nature industrialisation, two and a half minutes ago. Digital technology,

and Public Health. So I can say that some very clever people from all 20 seconds.

the top universities – including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, And suddenly here we are, sitting for long periods, indoors,

Cambridge, Melbourne, Brisbane – are now looking very, very hard isolated, often looking at a screen. That is not what we were

at what’s actually happening to our brains and bodies when we get designed to do – and we just can’t adjust in those 20 seconds.

disconnected from nature. And the results So we are now in a hostile environment for

are in. But first, let’s get the story straight. Trees in which our minds and bodies were not
designed.
Who are we? deprived
So, what does that mean?
I’d like to take you back 100,000 years. And
Let’s look at what’s changed. First of all,
areas reduce thelet’s imagine those 100,000 years are 24 hours. we’re often isolated. Loneliness is one of the
So 24 hours ago we were hunter gatherers. chief causes of ill health in cities; its effect on
the rate of heart disease is exactly the same
health inequalityGenetics were making us better and better at
between richit, generation by generation. And every
single part of being a good hunter-gatherer as smoking 20 cigarettes a day. We are not
designed to be lonely.
and pooris connected to the environment.

22 Wildlife news: national