By Anna Medaris Miller / U.S. News
A girl under 5-years-old was throwing regular weekend temper tantrums, and her parents complained to Dr. Robert Zarr, a pediatrician at Unity Health Care in the District of Columbia. When he probed about the family’s routine, he learned they were spending the majority of their weekends inside. The fits didn’t happen at school, where the girl had recess.
So instead of labeling the child with a behavioral problem or shrugging and saying, “She’ll grow out of it,” he wrote a prescription advising the family to spend a couple hours each weekend day at a nearby park.
“It sounded like she was starved for some nature,” says Zarr, who in 2013 helped launch DC Park Rx, an initiative encouraging physicians to prescribe time outside to patients and families. He may have been right: When the family returned for a follow-up appointment, the tantrums had stopped.
DC Park Rx identifies and rates 350 local parks and other green spaces in the capital, which residents can search via ZIP code. “This is a special public health intervention because it relies on the relationship between a patient and his or her provider,” says Zarr, noting that the health professionals must gauge how much free time the patients have, assess their access to green spaces and recommend outdoor time in ways that best address their needs. So far, his team has written 829 park prescriptions for a range of issues, including to prevent and treat chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma. “I don’t get a lot of rolling of the eyes,” he adds. “Most people understand that there’s something lacking in their daily schedule.”