By Jocelyn Yong
The rapid development of Science and Technology has spurred the invention of more fanciful and technological advanced gadgets that flood the market.
Although these gadgets play an important role to improve the quality of our lives, they are also a leading cause of myopia. Because of the online activities using these gadgets, children are often dissuaded from doing outdoor activities. As the saying goes, “The water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up.”
Myopia, which is known to common people as nearsightedness, is a vision condition which allows us to see objects near to us clearly, but objects from a distance become blurry.
According to doctors at Mayo Clinic at Minnesota, USA, a longer-than-normal eyeball can be the primary root cause to myopia. This causes light rays to refract incorrectly by focusing images in front of our retina.
The Outline has reported that more than 32 percent of the world’s population between ages 12 and 54 have myopia. Studies have estimated that 5 billion people have myopia and a further one billion would have developed high myopia by 2050.
To determine whether one has myopia, one of the common symptoms is to have blurry vision when looking at distant objects. Nearsightedness can also be diagnosed when someone has the need to squint or partially close the eyelids to see clearly. Besides, they might suffer from severe headaches caused by eyestrain.
Progressive myopia is predominantly caused by one’s genes, according to Medicine Net. Children who have parents with high myopia are high-risk group, as they may inherit a tendency to develop myopia from their parents.
On the other hand, children, whose parents may have perfect eyesight, can also develop high myopia due to their bad habits. For example, studying in the dark, or getting too engrossed to electronic devices and having less exposure to outdoor activities are all potential causes of high myopia.
Even though myopia is not a rare disease, it might also be worrying due to the blurry vision. Several methods are considered to help people with myopia. The simplest way is by finding a suitable pair of glasses with the help of an optometrist. Spectacles are indeed humanity’s greatest invention, allowing those with eyesight problem to have crystal clear vision.
However, putting on the glasses do not help to control myopia. It also tends to get worse as kids get older due to the growth of their eyes. This can lead to a significant impact on a child’s everyday life and may cause future eye diseases – retinal detachment, glaucoma and cataract , to name a few!
Thus, myopia control spectacle lenses are a better solution to slow down the progression of myopia. Research found that the standard success rate using these lenses is up to 52 percent in preventing the significant increase of myopia.
Besides, myopia control contact lenses and Atropine eye drops are some of the effective methods to retard nearsightedness with limited side effects.
It cannot be denied that there are several methods to treat or slow down the progression of myopia with the improvement of technology, though prevention is still better than cure.
Eye specialists have proved that children with more outdoor activities in brighter light have little need for vision correction. A leading theory suggests that children who are exposed to natural sunlight inspires the release of hormone in the retina, known as dopamine. This helps to reduce the risk of myopia.
“An apple a day, helps to keep the doctor away.” Eating nutritious food not only contributes to our health; it also helps to maintain a good eyesight. Green leafy vegetables like spinach or broccoli and orange-coloured fruits are best recommended to preserve a good eye vision. Carrots, mangoes and apricots which are rich in Vitamin A help us with night vision, which enables our eyes to adjust to darkness better.
Many examples that I come across of people who have myopia, especially the millennials or Gen Y babies. They are dominated by increased exposure to near-based works and less outdoor time.
This will be a great challenge to the health of the young growing eyes, and according to Mivision, this is part of the current worldwide epidemic of myopia.
My advice to fellow school mates: We should all take part in taking care of our eyesight to prevent vision loss. Eye is a big part of our daily life. You lose it, it will be for life.
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