Meeting promotes play every day

The value of play every day will be stressed next week during a national conference that’ll take place at Clemson University’s Madren Center. More than 200 experts in the fields of medicine, parks and recreation, health science, and education will address the benefits of play during lectures and panel discussions starting Sunday and continuing through Wednesday. The presenters will share research that shows play can help reduce one of the country’s primary health issues: obesity. Fran Mainella, the 16th director of the National Park Service and a visiting scholar in Clemson’s department of parks, recreation and tourism management, co-chairs the U-S Play Coalition.