nearsighted

[low_delta]

With childhood nearsightedness on the rise, new research suggests that playing outdoors in natural light might protect kids against developing the condition. What do you think?

I spent plenty of time reading outdoors in natural light, and it didn't save my eyesight!

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

But did you play? LOL
Nothing could have saved my eyesight. And I was always outside as a kid.

[rivendweller.livejournal.com]

I played outside all the time when I was a kid. Didn't do me any good, either.

But I had lasik surgery when I was 51, and it was wonderful. My distance vision is still perfect. I need glasses for reading, though.

[smittenbyu]

ha haha.. but you were READING and not playing!! :P My opthamologist here had shared that human bodies work on improving efficiencies. When the body sees you are not using a particular muscle it will quit keeping it as strong as the others you are using. More often than not when you think your eye sight has changes, it's eye muscles that have weakened. So that makes sense. When you play outdoors your eye muscles are exercised.

I have had glasses since I was 18yo. When I moved from Hawai'i (with daily exposure to far off horizons) and within a year or two of moving to a city in Malaysia, my eyesight went from -1.75 to almost -3.50. They had me tested for diabetes and a string of other things. And I had shared my theory that the city life did that.

And then I see my dad who like his siblings grew up reading by kerosene lamps/street lights didn't get glasses till he was 50! He also played a ton. My MIL who did a lot of reading in the sunlight got her glasses in her 20s.

My optician in Malaysia thought I just missed Hawai'i a lot. Which was true. Went from a perfect 75F year around (ok 11 months of the year) to a tropical climate - who wouldn't?! :)

[ravenfeather.livejournal.com]

I have been nearsighted and wearing glasses since two years old, so I don't think I had time to exercise them. I played outside and read HUGE amounts as a kid.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I've often thought about getting the surgery. But My glasses are a part of me.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

It seems like genetics, but then it seems like all the readers now need glasses. And my eyes got worse during the computer age.

I'm sure it's genetics.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I mostly played outdoors, though I did occasionally read outside. But read a lot indoors. I got glasses around age eight or nine. I wonder how much reading I did before that age.