Child-Centered and Nutrition-Sensitive Green Spaces: Policy Recommendations for Childhood Obesity Prevention in the Philippines’ Urban Poor Communities

Abstract

Evidence suggests that green spaces benefit children’s physical activity and healthy eating behaviors. However, inequalities on green space availability and accessibility in deprived urban communities in the Philippines compromise the generation of these health outcomes. Urban planning and development in the country mostly focus on developing roads, buildings, and other ‘gray spaces’ with limited considerations on the value of nature-based public health interventions. In this policy perspective, we examined existing evidence about the impacts of green spaces on childhood obesity and the determinants that influence green space use among children. We then proposed policy measures that could help in the development of child-centered and nutrition-sensitive green spaces in the country’s urban poor communities. To optimize the health-promoting benefits of green spaces on children’s health; availability, accessibility, type, safety, and social infrastructures should be considered in developing child-centered and nutrition-sensitive green spaces. We recommend that a green space policy should follow a wider multi-sectoral and systems-based approach by considering social, urban planning, financial, educational, and environmental interventions to holistically prevent childhood obesity in the country’s socioeconomically deprived urban communities.