This is a guest post by Kristiana Carden. Children’s free time should include play and physical activity, but kids in the United States simply aren’t playing enough. Only one in five children live within walking distance of a park or playground, and the incidence of childhood obesity increases 29 percent in neighborhoods without one. What’s more, children ages eight to 12 are now spending an average of 7.5 hours a day in front of a screen. This “play deficit” is having profound consequences for kids physically, socially and cognitively.