KABOOM! Youth Mental Health Report Makes the Case for Parks and Recess as Infrastructure

• Fewer than one in four children ages six to 17 hit the CDC’s 60-minute daily activity threshold, per the KABOOM! report
• Daily recess averaged 37 minutes in 2001 and 19.5 minutes in 2024, a near 50% cut, citing National Center for Education Statistics data
• Local park and recreation agencies reach 50 million youth a year, with 30 million-plus in organized sports or outdoor recreation, per NRPA
• Community-designed playspaces in Prince George’s County, Maryland drove a 223% increase in playground use, according to mobility data cited by KABOOM!

KABOOM!, the national nonprofit that builds community playspaces, released its first State of Our Kids report in July 2026, a youth mental health report that treats parks, recess, and playgrounds as public health infrastructure rather than amenities. The report, written with the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, Children & Nature Network, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, and a six-student Youth Editorial Board, states that fewer than one in four youth meet the CDC’s 60 minutes of daily physical activity, and that 28 million children lack a quality park within a 10-minute walk of home, citing Trust for Public Land. It closes with a five-point roadmap aimed at funders, municipal leaders, and youth-serving organizations.

What the Youth Mental Health Report Found

The report opens with the scale of the problem. Diagnosed mental or behavioral health conditions among U.S. adolescents rose 35% between 2016 and 2023, per the Youth Editorial Board’s opening statement, which cites Health Resources and Services Administration data. Four in 10 students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, according to the same section. Depression diagnoses among children rose 60% between 2017 and 2021 and anxiety rose 31%, per the report.

KABOOM! connects those numbers to two shifts: less unstructured play and more screen time. The report states that 40% of children own a tablet by age two and spend an average of 7.5 hours per day on screens outside of school. Tech platforms generate roughly $11 billion a year in ad revenue from users ages 0 to 17, according to a 2023 PLOS ONE study by Raffoul et al. cited in the report.

The counterweight, per the report, is time outdoors. Children who spend 60 minutes a day in nature have a 50% lower risk of mental health issues, with the largest benefit for lower-income households, citing Caryl et al. (2024). Physical activity is two to three times higher when children are outside compared to indoors, citing Cooper et al. (2010).

Parks and Recreation as a Youth Well-Being Platform

The section most relevant to youth sports operators comes from NRPA CEO Kristine Stratton. Local park and recreation agencies engage 50 million youth annually, and more than 30 million kids participate in organized youth sports or outdoor recreation in those settings, per NRPA’s 2025 youth sports report cited by KABOOM!. The report describes parks and rec as the out-of-school-time sector serving the broadest cross-section of children, including youth in low-income areas.

NRPA also supplies outcome data. Agencies using NRPA’s youth sports framework have seen a 24% increase in youth sports participation, per the report. NRPA’s youth mentoring initiatives report 44% of mentees experiencing improved mental health outcomes. Grantees advancing gender equity strategies report gains in girls’ participation, girls’ confidence, and the number of women coaching, per the same NRPA data.

“We can help prevent crises by weaving protective factors into daily life: trusted adults, a sense of belonging, physical activity, safe places, positive peer relationships, enriching opportunities, and pathways to building confidence and purpose,” Stratton says in the report.

The report’s stated ask is alignment. It calls for parks and recreation to lead coalitions with schools, libraries, housing authorities, and health partners, and for funders to invest in shared outcomes and partnership infrastructure rather than individual programs alone. Jim Boyle, Vice President of Programs and Communication at the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, frames the stakes in plain terms: “Something as simple as kids being able to play should not be as hard as it is.”

Recess Policy and Schoolyard Rebuilds

Recess is where the report gets most specific on policy. Average daily recess fell from 37 minutes in 2001 to 19.5 minutes in 2024, per National Center for Education Statistics data cited in the report. Only 12 states and Washington, D.C. have policies requiring unstructured play during the school day, according to KABOOM!.

KABOOM! reports two active policy efforts. CEO Lysa Ratliff served on Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s transition team, where KABOOM! supported a state recess policy. In California, KABOOM! and Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation advocated for SB 291, a bill requiring at least 30 minutes of daily recess for all California students.

On the build side, Eat. Learn. Play., Oakland Unified School District, and KABOOM! have worked together since 2021 on playgrounds, multi-sport courts, teaching gardens, and outdoor classrooms. The partnership will complete 28 schoolyard transformations by the end of 2026, serving 8,600 students per year, per the report. Chris Helfrich, CEO of Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, says in the report: “Too often, we treat physical activity, academic success, and mental health as separate issues, but for kids, they are deeply connected.”

KABOOM! also cites usage data from its own builds. Using its Playspace Inequity Prioritization Index (PIPI) and cell phone mobility data, the organization confirmed that new playspaces in Prince George’s County, Maryland led to a 223% increase in playground use, citing a 2025 CityData.AI analysis. Children & Nature Network, which works across more than 50 cities with the National League of Cities, reports that partner communities see a 15:1 return on investment through improvements in children’s health, well-being, and learning, per the report.

Where the Access Gap Is Widest

Three chapters focus on Black, Latino/Hispanic, and Native children, and each ties current access to historical land and housing policy. In Black neighborhoods, parks are half the size of those in white neighborhoods and nearly five times as crowded, per the report. Sixty-eight percent of Black people live in nature-deprived areas compared to 23% of white people, citing a 2020 Center for American Progress analysis. Redlined communities are the hottest neighborhoods in 94% of American cities, citing Hoffman, Shandas, and Pendleton (2020).

In Los Angeles, predominantly Latino/Hispanic neighborhoods have 0.6 park acres per 1,000 residents compared to 31.8 acres in predominantly white areas, per the report. Latino/Hispanic children represent nearly one in four U.S. children, and among the 1.2 million Latino/Hispanic adolescents who experienced a major depressive episode in 2023, only half received treatment, citing SAMHSA. The report also states that immigration enforcement activity has made families more fearful of gathering in public spaces, including at school drop-offs and pickups.

One in three Native American and Alaska Native children live in poverty, per the report, and access to quality playspaces in many Native communities is among the worst of any demographic group. The chapter, written with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, points to the IndigeFit Kids Campaign as a community-led model.

The report’s fifth action item follows from this data: direct funding toward communities that have been historically underserved and where mental health challenges are most severe.

28 Oakland Schoolyards by December and 38 States Without a Recess Rule

The report’s five next steps are concrete enough to track: engage young people in designing solutions, integrate youth mental health into local, state, and federal policy, redirect investment to spaces for physical activity and nature, foster cross-sector collaboration, and close the equity gap. Each maps to a partner already named in the report, from NRPA’s agency framework to Children & Nature Network’s city partnerships.

For youth sports operators, the report offers a reframing that sponsors and municipal partners can use: the fields, courts, and parks where programs run are described here as mental health infrastructure, backed by attributed data from the CDC, NRPA, and peer-reviewed research. The immediate milestones are dated. Oakland’s 28 schoolyard transformations are due by the end of 2026, and 38 states still have no recess requirement on the books.

Source: KABOOM!, State of Our Kids: Addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis, July 2026, https://kaboom.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/KABOOM_SOOKReport_R5_KABOOM_FINAL.pdf