Spectacles
for children: Why has it become the common standard?
Take a walk in your surrounding park and you will
find scores of children wearing spectacles. Is this a new phenomenon? Was this
the same case a decade or two earlier? If not, why has this become the new
trend?
One of the reasons is the decreasing level of
outdoor activities, which is a result of the increasing addiction to
television, video games, tablets, and, of course, smart phones. This has been
shown by a study in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, which has concluded
that children may reduce their risk of developing myopia by spending more time
outdoors[1]. Even
though, genetics also affect eyesight, but controllable environmental factors
such as playing video games also affect the likelihood of a child becoming
short-sighted. In addition, scientists discovered that children born in the
summer were more likely to develop nearsightedness than their peers, a fact
researchers credited to earlier entry into the education system, which is
associated with changes to the shape of the eyeball linked to myopia.
Apart from the sedentary lifestyle, increased use
of digital devices is also to blame for nearsightedness. But according to
scientists, this risk can be offset by spending more time outside. However,
parental anxiety, demanding homework schedules and the rise of electronic
equipment are increasingly keeping children indoors.
There might also be some other reasons which might
be quite different from an adults’. They might need spectacles to help
straighten the eyes when they are crossed or misaligned, to help strengthen the
vision of a weak eye (amblyopia), or to protect one eye when the other eye has
poor vision[2].
Apart from
the uncontrollable factors, there are certain steps that can be followed to
prevent eye problems like myopia in children. These include limiting the phone/
electronic device usage by setting a time for it everyday and making sure that
the child watches TV from a safe distance, i.e., not too close. Also, one
should make sure that the child wears sunglasses while outdoors to prevent the
sun rays to stress the eyes. The most important step is to increase the time
that they spend outdoors.
If these steps are followed on a regular basis and
by having a healthy diet, the chances of a child having to wear spectacles
would decrease by a big margin.
-Arpita Mary Abraham
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