Sure, peo­ple say they love the out­doors. But in­stead of en­joy­ing it, the av­er­age adult spends most of the sea­son stuck in stale of­fices and liv­ing rooms.Even kids to­day spend sev­en hours more on aca­d­e­mics and two hours less on sports and out­door ac­tiv­i­ties per week than they did 20 years ago. An­nu­al fam­i­ly va­ca­tions have de­creased dras­ti­cal­ly.But all this in­door liv­ing isn't do­ing much for our health. Chil­dren who get more "vi­t­a­min G"-what ex­perts call time spent in green spaces-have low­er stress lev­els, more suc­cess in school, and few­er AD­HD symp­toms. And sim­ply be­ing in sun­light trig­gers skin to make vi­t­a­min D, which is shap­ing up to be a po­tent can­cer fight­er."We may al­so ex­er­cise and so­cialise more in na­ture-ac­tiv­i­ties with proven health ben­e­fits," said Frances Kuo, PhD, di­rec­tor of the Land­scape and Hu­man Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Ur­bana-Cham­paign.So get mov­ing: Here are six ways your fam­i­ly can cap­ture the ben­e­fits of an I-love-the out­doors lifestyle.

Make out­door play manda­to­ry

The Na­tion­al Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion urges par­ents to in­sti­tute an out­door "green hour" for kids. Start by sug­gest­ing just one more ac­tiv­i­ty each week­end-a fam­i­ly bike ride or an af­ter-din­ner walk. Next, add a week­day event.

In­vest in fun boots and let kids splash in pud­dles.

Pack a pic­nic snack and dine in a shady spot.

Look for con­stel­la­tions or catch fire­flies at night.

Grow a love of­gar­den­ing

Be­sides get­ting fresh air and ex­er­cise, kids who gar­den eat more veg­eta­bles, re­search shows. Plus, a study of 647 grade-school­ers found that stu­dents who grew plants scored about 12 per cent high­er on aca­d­e­m­ic tests, com­pared with those who didn't. To make it fun for every­one, choose easy, hardy crops, like squash, toma­toes, and radish­es.

Bring thean­i­mals clos­er

Add bright flow­ers to your gar­den to at­tract cater­pil­lars and but­ter­flies you can watch. To lure wildlife straight to your win­dow, help kids make a bird feed­er out of wood or a milk car­ton.Keep binoc­u­lars handy-bird­watch­ing is one of the fastest-grow­ing hob­bies.

Move the kitchenout­side

Get the whole fam­i­ly out­doors by do­ing more of what you al­ready do-cook­ing (and eat­ing!). Fire up the grill and make fun cre­ations such as fruit ke­babs, or let kids per­son­alise meat by brush­ing on sauces be­fore cook­ing. Make your din­ing area more invit­ing on cool evenings with a fire pit or pa­tio heater.

Sleep un­der the stars

Out­door camp­ing isn't for every­one: too many bugs, too few show­ers. But even a fam­i­ly "sleep out" in the yard counts as com­muning with na­ture; pitch a tent and switch on a portable ra­dio or open a board game.Get­ting kids ex­cit­ed about camp­ing ear­ly on may en­cour­age them, as teens, to pur­sue wilder­ness pro­grammes that en­hance self-con­fi­dence, mo­ti­va­tion and in­de­pen­dence.

Pave a new path

You'll get greater health ben­e­fits ex­er­cis­ing where it's green-even if it's on­ly once a week. A 2003 Swedish study found that peo­ple who ran in parks felt 15 per cent more re­stored than those who ran on tread­mills or through city streets. And hik­ing or bik­ing with the kids can be a great break from mun­dane week­day work­outs and in­spires fam­i­ly-wide fit­ness. In­ter­ac­tion with na­ture re­duces de­pres­sion, pro­motes heal­ing, sparks cre­ativ­i­ty, and even in­creas­es life ex­pectan­cy-up­ping sur­vival odds by about 15 per cent over five years, ac­cord­ing to one Japan­ese study.