Half the world will be nearsighted by 2050

[bananas]

http://www.treehugger.com/health/half-world-will-be-nearsighted-2050.html

Half the world will be nearsighted by 2050
Melissa Breyer
February 18, 2016

A cautionary tale! Get outside; send your kids out to play. Myopia rates are skyrocketing, spending too much time inside is to blame.

Lat year we wrote about the startling conclusion that nearsightedness has more than doubled in 50 years; now new research is backing up the previous work with some startling statistics. We really are losing our vision.

Researchers from Brien Holden Vision Institute, University of New South Wales Australia and Singapore Eye Research Institute conclude that half of the world – nearly 5 billion people – will be myopic by 2050. That's seven times more people with myopia than in 2000. And of those 5 billion, up to 1 billion of them will be at a significantly increased risk of blindness.

This quick spike in myopia is attributed to environmental factors – not genetics – "principally lifestyle changes resulting from a combination of decreased time outdoors and increased near work activities, among other factors," say the authors of the study which is published in the journal Ophthalmology.

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[pugetres]

1. Take away their phones!

I always read/heard that myopia was a result of being a bookworm as a child. It was a result of the brain adjusting to looking at very near objects (books) as a child rather than being outside and looking for threats/stimulation/anything outside of what they are familiar with in their environment. The interest of the bookworms and their focus on the nearby world influenced their muscles (of the eyes) and their brains' preference to focus on objects close to them.

Kids these days...

sigh. They are all looking at their phones during those critical years?

I don't have any links to share but it is interesting to read about.

[hollysmom]

3. I was book worm who was thrown outside as a kid, I would take my book with me. Used to read in

the bright sun. didn't wear sunglasses until a teen. I had perfect vision until I was 65. to add to that I was in IT and used computers and worked a lot, bought a computer early on and signed up and participated in bulletin boards before the internet.
But I also walked a lot and focused on the distance when walking. couldn't ride a bike (balance). Still could finish a book every other day even when in school. It might be not being outside or ever looking in the distance.
No video games though, so looked up a lot.

[bemildred]

2. It's an adaptation, not an illness.

It means you read too much.

[hollysmom]

4. lets add osteoporosis to that,

I used to be in the sun a lot when I had a beach house. now I am indoors more in the summer and spring and fall, and my doctor told me my old strong bones have started to weaken and I need to take vitamin D. Instead,I go out in the sun every day now.

[freebrew]

5. I thought myopia was genetic...

as well as environmentally caused.

I read something, somewhere, long ago. Women that inherit the gene for color blindness become myopic as
color blindness is rare in females.

I know i was terribly myopic.

Radial Keratotomy(sp?). It works.

[GreatGazoo]

6. ..but there will be an app for it." NT