Welcome to the ‘Playground Trends’ Blog.
I’m Dean Joel, the Managing Director and owner of A-Play (formerly Australasian Playgrounds). Welcome to our ‘Playground Trends’ blog. This blog has been launched to share developments and trends in playground design and development and to tackle issues critical to the health and well being for our children, and ourselves.
We’ve been designing and building playground equipment for more than 15 years and during that time have installed more than 4500 of them around Australia. We exist for the benefit of children. Fun, challenge, adventure, excitement and growth are words we use every day in our quest to innovate new play environments.
As a society, a number of challenges stand in the way of our nurturing a healthier generation of children. While medical science continues to achieve breakthroughs our lifestyles are leading to a growing number of health issues amongst our children. Childhood obesity is rapidly becoming an epidemic. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) one-quarter of all Australian children, or around 600,000 children aged 5–17 years, are overweight or obese. It is now well recognised that children who are overweight or obese are at increased risk of developing cardiovascular problems and Type 2 diabetes amongst other issues. They also have a higher risk of psychological and social problems, such as discrimination, victimisation and bullying. Obesity, in particular, may continue into adulthood and affect long-term health.
This alarming trend can be reversed and key factor is increasing the level of physical activity amongst children. Physical Education programs and more physical play time are key building blocks. Government policy, increasing the level of physical education in schools and more fun and safe outdoor play environments are positive strategies for addressing the problem.
My aim, is to share positive trends, ideas and developments so that together we can help foster increasingly happy and healthy children.
