Healthy development during preschool: Examining the roles of outdoor time, light exposure and popularity

Abstract

Contemporary models of health development highlight the importance of understanding health as a developmental process that continues throughout life and can be modified during developmental windows or by crucial events. Health is viewed as unfolding and resulting from multilevel, adaptive and bidirectional interactions between children and their physical and social environments. Healthy development occurs when there is harmony between biological, cultural, and psychological processes, and evolution has made health phenotypes malleable to enhance adaptability to the various environments that children may encounter. Based on this framework, the present thesis examines protective factors in the physical and social environment of preschool, as well as how they relate to children´s health status and development. We report our findings that exposure to daylight and the outdoor environment is associated with positive short- and long-term cognitive and behavioural outcomes, and that children´s social environments may play a role in the risk of attracting infectious diseases. These associations are of a complex nature, with non-linear, dose-response influences operating on multiple levels.