No one can doubt the most obvious health implications – obesity and diabetes, to just name a couple – being experienced by a generation of American youth who seem perfectly at ease settling into a sedentary lifestyle where avatars and virtual reality more frequently replace direct visceral contact with nature, adventure, and physical exercise.

Yet, there are even more disturbing implications as urgently told by Richard Louv, chair of the Children and Nature Network, in his 2008 book ‘Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.’ In a millennial society where children are alienated increasingly from a natural environment that inevitably will be part of their stewardship as citizens and leaders, those most passionate about carrying forward the essential legacy of outdoor recreation acknowledge that success will come only when a youth-led movement empowers its members to lead their peers toward reconnecting with nature through outdoor activities.

And, more than 16,000 participants in the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, which opens tomorrow at the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City, will get their first peek at Outdoor Nation, a multi-faceted initiative designed by The Outdoor Foundation to identify and train young people who will be effective leaders in the movement to reconnect young people with the outdoors.

The timing is serendipitous, given an economy that’s slow to recover and shifts in demographic trends where a millennial generation of children is now in their most formative years as influential consumers and as emerging leaders. “They are ready, willing and able to lead a cultural movement that includes outdoor activities as a daily part of their lives,” Christine Fanning, executive director of the Boulder, Colorado foundation, says. “We want to give them the platform and the infrastructure to harness their ideas, energy and their enthusiasm. They certainly have an incredible influence over how their families spend their time and money but they also have the opportunity to be advocates in their communities, working with others to maintain and build parks and encouraging schools to reintroduce outdoor experiences into their daily education.”

Working from a broad multidisciplinary research base

And, as Louv’s book is an excellent, well-written summary of the fundamental challenges faced by parents, teachers, the outdoor industry, and policy makers in reenergizing the connections children have with nature, Outdoor Nation is predicated on a broadly diversified base of peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly research that gets not only at the physical health concerns of the macro issue but also those involving the cognitive and social development of youth, ranging from cultivating self-confidence to dealing with the problems of attention deficit disorder and delayed learning.

The foundation released its own extensive research last fall based on an online survey capturing responses from more than 40,000 Americans ages six and older and covering 114 different activities, making it the largest survey of its type examining participation in sports and outdoor activities.

While there were encouraging signs of growing participation in outdoor activities like hiking, backpacking, mountain biking and trail running, there also were declines in outdoor participation, especially among children between the ages of six and 12 and among minority groups in urban areas who often cite the lack of nearby safe, affordable, and convenient access as a barrier to participation.

Regarding diverse racial and ethnic groups, however, there was one particular sign that suggests the type of outreach to be engendered by Outdoor Nation has potential. Although participation in outdoor recreation is lower among such groups, diverse participants go outdoors more often than Caucasians. African Americans, with the lowest participation rate, get out the most frequently, followed closely by Hispanics and then Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Fanning says the outdoor community’s definition can be broadened by working closely with minorities as well as giving youth real-time platforms both online and in the brick-and-mortar settings of their community organizations. “It’s often easy to overlook the fact that YMCA centers around the nation consistently serve more youth than a fast-food neighborhood restaurant. Intentional or not, the perception is that outdoor recreation might seem a bit too elitist in focus or to dismiss quickly people who typically do not fit a demographic pattern as outdoor thrill-seekers,” she explains.

Fanning adds outdoor recreation should be characterized across much broader categories. Perhaps, this would include kite flying, outdoor photography, the simplest pleasure of enjoying a park’s natural setting, and other less adventure-directed activities that are equally effective and relevant as hiking, backpacking, kayaking, skiing, snowboarding, and other traditional activities.

Creating a viable network

The makeup of the inaugural 15 ambassadors in Outdoor Nation, ranging in age from nine to the middle twenties, reflects these broader sentiments. For example, Stefanie Michaelson, a graphic designer with Utah States Park and Recreation, is using her dual degrees in visual communication and Spanish from the University of Utah to reach out to the state’s most underserved populations when it comes to outdoor recreation. Michaelson is a hiker, snowboarder, and backcountry skier as well.

Another is Matthew Moniz, who will turn 12 this year, and is already recognized as one of Colorado’s most active young alpinists. Motivated to bring awareness to a young friend’s battle with a rare terminal blood vessel disorder affecting the lungs, Moniz has used high alpine climbing to help build awareness of the illness where the effects of a low-oxygen, high-altitude environment mimic the disease’s symptoms.

Julia Lopez, an adaptive ski instructor who teaches in Vermont and California, works with youth who want to ski despite the fact that they may have autism, use a wheelchair, or are visually or hearing impaired.

Outdoor Nation will comprise three phases with the first – The Outsiders – starting this month with a digital social media community involving 1,000 participants between the ages of 16 and 24. The online platform will enable members to organize around geographical locations, areas of interest and outdoor passions. Fanning explains professional moderators will facilitate bi-weekly sessions in which participants will provide feedback to organizations, industry representatives, and outdoor recreation foundations and coalitions on attitudes toward the outdoors, barriers to participation in activities, and behaviors that lead to a sustained active lifestyle.

The National Park Service, REI, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation and The North Face are help to fund this phase of the project.

The second will be The Outdoor Nation, a two-day summit and festival in New York City’s Central Park slated for June. Building upon the city’s previous experience with the Adventures NYC Festival that drew more than 25,000, Outdoor Nation organizers have slated the first day of the event for outdoor concerts and traditional and nontraditional activities including Tents, kayaking, climbing, biking, fishing, and trail running.

This event also has attracted many major sponsors including the YMCA, Live Earth, Creative Artists Agency, The Coleman Company, Johnson and Johnson, REI and The North Face.

However, Fanning says the second day of the event will comprise the core of Outdoor Nation’s pulse. Some 500 young representatives from the states will set the agenda, priorities and strategies with the assistance of Mobilize, one of the nation’s most prominent youth empowerment organizations. “It is here that the representatives will get the most valuable training and tools to take home to their communities and to begin acting upon the agenda they set in New York,” she explains.

Some sessions will focus on career opportunities related to conservation, outdoor recreation and environmental sustainability as well as the most effective ways in which they can be promoted. Others will target volunteer activities and how youth leaders can mobilize their peers and communities for park cleanup campaigns or for outdoor recreational activities directed toward traditionally underserved youth populations. Issues of health and fitness, the involvement of diverse groups in setting the agenda, and school-based activities that target the value of outdoor recreation also will be part of many roundtable discussions.

The third phase – Outdoor Nation on Tour – will launch in the fall and continue well into next year and beyond. Fanning says the results of the NYC summit will frame the various regional events that will help representatives gain the resources as well as the confidence to organize effectively in their schools and communities as well as on college campuses.

“It is here we believe will be the building blocks of a grassroots movement that truly begins to connect young people with nature,” she adds. These regional events also will help expand the Outdoor Nation ambassador corps.

Measuring the impact

The cumulative impact of the initiative perhaps will be measured not in the immediate period but in the longer term window of how awareness and perceptions about outdoor recreation in an unprecedented age of digital and media immersion take hold and strengthen among young people who not only are restless but also look for directed focus about the ways and means in which they develop not only physically but cognitively.

Fanning says the foundation will conduct regular follow-ups with participants at one-month, six-month, and annual benchmarks. This likely will provide valuable context to how these campaigns indeed work at not only getting the message out to a group whose attention span can be swayed or wooed by competing interests in a moment of spontaneous media pop and flash but also to the ways in which youth believe they can participate in discussions with meaning and purpose.

Louv sums it up well:

‘Good ideas are gaining traction, such as a national Natural Teachers Network to support the art teachers and English teachers and all the others who insist on getting their students outside; a Nature Rocks social marketing campaign; a Natural Leaders Network, to galvanize young people in inner cities and outer exurbs to become the most effective leaders for the cause; urban dwellers using neighborhood land trusts to create their own “button parks”; along with innovative efforts by the Sierra Club, Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, ecoAmerica, Lindblad Expeditions, the American Camp Association, REI and The North Face, and many other organizations.

‘But we’re not there yet.’

Rightfully so, Fanning believes Outdoor Nation can carry that goal a lot further down the path.

For more information about The Outdoor Foundation and Outdoor Nation, see here.