Cultivating Healthy Eye Habits for Kids

April 11, 2023
Cultivating Healthy Eye Habits for Kids

Having a good vision since childhood is crucial for any individual. Everything a child accomplishes, from riding a bike to doing daily chores on their own, requires good vision. Encouraging children to develop these healthy eye habits reduces their chance of eye damage and may even help them avoid myopia. It is crucial to recognize and treat visual impairment in children at an early stage since it generates a burden that persists into adulthood, which is why it is necessary to do so. The visual system continues to evolve during the first six years of a person's existence, making it more susceptible to visual disorders that either create blurry visual input or anomalous binocular interaction.1

Some healthy eye habits to prevent the progression of myopia:

Spend More Time in the Sun:

Children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be or develop myopia, new epidemiological research reveals, even when controlling for factors like the amount of near work they perform and whether or not their parents are myopic.2

The Sydney Myopia Study found that children who spent more than two hours per day outside had a lower risk of developing myopia than those who engaged in high amounts of near activity. This was the case even among the children who performed a lot of close work. Subsequently, interventional research found that increasing the amount of time spent outside decreased the incidence of myopia in youngsters. According to the findings of a meta-analysis that was published in 2017, spending more time outside reduces the chance of developing myopia, with a risk ratio ranging from 0.54 to 0.57 for high vs low levels of time spent outdoors.3

Limit Screen Time:

Excessive exposure to blue light from screens may be harmful to young eyes. It has been observed that excessive screen time can cause development of visual fatigue and myopia, as well as issues like diopopia (double vision) and inability to concentrate affecting learning and work efficiency.4 To reduce the risk of myopia developing in children, it is recommended that they spend around two hours in daylight each day.5

Schedule Yearly Eye Examinations:

A regular, periodic eye examination is necessary to keep a check on the development of any myopic condition and gauge maintenance or any sort of progression.

The American Association of Optometrists recommends that children undergo a baseline eye and vision assessment between the ages of six and twelve months, one complete test between the ages of three and five years, and annual checkups beginning before first grade.

Between the ages of three and five years, children who are still in preschool should have their eyes and eyesight thoroughly checked at least once by a qualified professional. Children of school age should have an annual complete eye and vision test performed in person.6

The eyes are an important part of health. Our eyes provide us with around eighty percent of the information that we take in.7 One should take care of their eyes, to lower the risk of developing blindness and losing vision.