Back to Nature: Understanding Nature Deficit Disorder

Richard Louv | 18-Jul-2014

"Nature-deficit disorder" as I defined it in Last Child in the Woods, is not a medical diagnosis, but a useful term to describe the human costs of alienation from nature, as suggested by recent research. Among these costs are diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses, a rising rate of myopia, child and adult obesity, and other maladies. This disorder damages children - and, as I write about The Nature Principle (http://richardlouv.com/books/nature-principle/), adults as well - but I think of it as more of .. Read More »