Screens Replace Streets: Child health at risk due to vanishing playgrounds

Tasnuba Akhter Rifa :

Lack of sufficient playgrounds and open spaces for the children of Dhaka city are growing in unhealthy situations posed child health risk, which makes the next generation vulnerable.
Sources said, the capital city has lost most of its playgrounds due to rampant urbanisation, unplanned use of land, and conversion of open spaces for other purposes.

The few public spaces that remain are inadequate, with many city wards lacking any playgrounds altogether.

Besides, most of the educational institutions of the city have no adequate playgrounds.
This scarcity has raised a serious concern about the children’s physical and mental well-being, as well as the city’s broader social and environmental health.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that children engage in at least one hour of physical activity each day, but only a small fraction of Dhaka’s children manage to do so. As a result, obesity, postural problems, poor sleep, and early symptoms of diabetes and hypertension are becoming more common issues.

Urban planners also point out that WHO advises having a minimum of 9 square metres of green space per person-something Dhaka falls far short of.

According to a recent survey, due to shortages of open spaces, children aged 6 to 12 years in the city spend about 5 hours a day on screens, far exceeding the recommended limit.
Both public health experts and urban planners expressed anxiety over the situations.

When contacted, eminent public health expert Professor Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, former Director at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) told The New Nation on Friday, “Dhaka is raising a generation of children who are growing up indoors, on screens, instead of on soil and in open air. Playgrounds are vanishing under concrete and traffic.”

“This situation is totally hazardous. Children growing without proper physical exercise, activities, sports and playing are becoming unhealthy physically and mentally,” the expert also said.

He suggested the authorities both in city and educational institutes have to manage sufficient play grounds or open spaces especially for the children to make the next generation healthy.

Contacted, eminent Urban Planner Professor Dr Adil Muhammad Khan told The New Nation, “For a healthy urban life, the WHO advises at least 9 square metres of green space per person, ideally within a 15-minute walk from every home.”

He said that the city parents too afraid to let children play on streets, smartphones have quietly become the city’s default replacement for play, resulted an unhealthy next generation.

Experts are blunt in their warning that if the city does not reclaim open space, Bangladesh will raise a generation that is weaker in body, lonelier in mind and detached from community life.
They recommend immediate measures to secure and reopen grounds, repurpose idle land into play pockets, and create shared access to school fields after class hours.

In Bongshal area of the capital, third-grader Sabbir Ahmed wants to go outside in the late afternoon like children once did. But there is no field within reach. “There is no field, even the rooftop is not safe for playing,” said his mother, Roksana Begum.

The other parents describe the same pattern citywide fields that once existed have been built over, leased out or walled off.

Experts said a healthy childhood depends not just on nutrition and schooling, but on social interaction through open spaces, playgrounds, cultural clubs and libraries.

A mother from Wari area of Dhaka described the transformation bluntly. “My son used to run in an empty lot near our house every afternoon. But the open space is no more. Now he cannot live without the mobile. His eyesight is weakening, and his attention span has been reduced. He stays alone and does not talk to anyone.”

Paediatricians classify this as ‘behavioural replacement’ when the absence of real play causes the brain to latch onto digital substitutes. The consequences show up as early myopia, obesity, irritability, sleep disturbance, anxiety, low attention span and social withdrawal.

The problem is structural. According to Rajuk’s Detailed Area Plan (DAP 2016-2035), children make up about 40 per cent of Dhaka’s residents yet the plan did not prioritise child-friendly open space.

A Rajuk survey conducted before drafting the DAP found that of the 129 wards under the two city corporations in Dhaka, 37 have no playgrounds or parks at all. The city was supposed to feature parks on 1,137 acres and playgrounds on 1,876 acres, but only 271 acres of parks and 294 acres of playgrounds remain. Many of the existing grounds are not publicly accessible.
Urban planners and psychologists claim that Dhaka is not only uninhabitable for children it is actively shaping unhealthy behaviour.