Sunlight can prevent myopia in children

Sydney, Australia, January 6, 2009: According to a latest research conducted by Australian scientists, exposure to sunlight for a couple of hours daily can help prevent myopiadefine or short-sightedness in children.

As per the study conducted by Australian Research Council, spending about two to three hours in bright sunlight everyday can significantly cut down the risk of myopiadefine.

Myopia is also referred to as near or short-sightedness. It is a refractive defect of the eye in which the image is produced in front of the retina. People suffering from myopia can see nearby objects clearly but distant objects appear blurred.

The number of myopia cases is quite less in Australia as compared to other countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China. In Singapore, 90 percent of students wear glasses by the time they pass out from school.

Lead researcher Professor Ian Morgan revealed that short-sightedness is prevalent among the highly educated. It has reached dangerous heights in East Asia.

Morgan said, “That would compare with about 20 percent of Australians. We were quite intrigued by this- that for a country that’s quite well educated we have a serious lack of myopia in Australia.”

The researchers conducted a comparative study and found that 30 percent of six and seven year old children residing in Singapore suffered from short-sightedness. While the figure was only 1.3 percent in Australian children of the same age group.

The ethnicity factor was also established when the researchers found that the statistics were almost the same when children of Chinese origin from both the nations were compared.

However, it was found that the amount of time spent outdoors significantly differed in the case of Singaporean and Australian children. While children from Singapore spend about 30 minutes outdoors, an average Australian spends almost two hours.

But the time spent on reading, watching television and playing computer games was similar in both groups of children. This clearly shows that the earlier claims of flickering screens harming children’s eyes are all untrue.

Morgan was quoted as saying, “There’s a driver for people to become myopic and that's education.” He further added, “And there’s a brake on people becoming myopic and that’s people going outside. What we would suggest is that what’s happened in East Asia is that they have got the balance totally out of kilter.”

The present study is a part of the far-sighted project on eye-sight of the government-funded Australian Research Council.