mbg Sustainability + Health Director
mbg Sustainability + Health Director
Emma Loewe is the Senior Sustainability Editor at mindbodygreen and the author of “Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us.”
Image by McKinsey Jordan / Stocksy
June 1, 2023
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Our series Healthy Planet, Healthy You explores just how tightly human health and environmental health are intertwined—for better and for worse. Each month, we’ll share the latest news on how nature can rejuvenate us on one hand and damage our health when it’s not cared for on the other. We’ll end with timely tips and tools to help you care for your environment so it can care for you.
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1.
Climate change is on track to negatively impact childhood growth and development in the U.S.
A new report by the EPA outlines how climate change is affecting children’s health and development. It identifies five of the main threats to children in the U.S.: extreme heat, poor air quality, changes in seasonality, flooding, and infectious diseases. Depending on the degree of warming in the next decade, these climate stressors could have devastating impacts on childhood learning, achievement, and mental and physical health, according to the report. (Read the report here1.)
2.
New theories on why living near trees can reduce your dementia risk
Those who live in greener communities may benefit from improved cognition and reduced dementia risk, previous research has found2. A new study set out to discover why this could be by analyzing data on over 100,000 Australian adults ages 45 and up. Their models found that people living in communities with over 20% tree cover were 14% less likely to develop dementia over 11 years—thanks in part to increased physical activity, less stress, more social support, and longer sleep duration. However, these factors don’t fully explain the link between tree canopy and dementia, so there’s still more to untangle here. (Read the research here3.)
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3.
Poor air quality can stifle infants’ growing brains
Researchers took to homes in rural India to study how indoor air quality impacts infant cognition. They found that children under two who lived in homes with poorer air quality tended to have lower visual working memory scores and slower visual processing speed. “Until now, studies had failed to show a link between poor air quality and cognitive problems in babies, when brain growth is at its peak and the brain may be particularly sensitive to toxins. Our study is the first to show this association,” lead researcher John Spencer, Ph.D. said in a statement. (Read the research here.)
4.
Why your bedroom should be a no-fly zone
Noise pollution is an underestimated threat to human health, as manmade sounds of all kinds can rev up our nervous systems in ways we don’t want. New research shows that hearing even a moderate amount of airplane noise at night, for example, is enough to disrupt sleep and keep us from reaching those coveted seven hours of snoozing. (Read the research here.)
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Monthly focus: Need something? Shop your community first
As summer approaches, many of us are ringing in the new season with new hobbies. And usually, this means buying new stuff. To keep your impact low and joy value high this month, consider how you can use the materials that already exist in your community as you’re gardening, hiking, etc.
The Buy Nothing app can be a great place to find art supplies for your epic landscape painting, for example, while Facebook Marketplace is a good spot for scouting secondhand pickleball gear. Instead of buying a shovel that you’ll only use once, can you ask your neighbor to borrow theirs for digging out your square-foot garden? By shopping your own neighborhood first, you can reduce the pressure to produce new goods, cut down on unnecessary shipping, and form some new connections in the process. So, does anyone in Brooklyn have any watercolor paints to spare?
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