Can daylight protect children from myopia?

Over the last 30 years, short sight, or myopia, has become a global public health problem. In countries in East and Southeast Asia, some 70-90 per cent of children now leave secondary schooling myopic.¹ The condition is becoming increasingly common elsewhere. So much so, that if current trends continue it is estimated that by 2050 half the world’s population, by then about 5 billion people, will be short-sighted. As many as a 20 per cent may become severely myopic and so will be at high risk of developing sight-threatening conditions.² Research now confirms what was widely believed years ago: time spent outdoors in daylight prevents children becoming short-sighted.³^,⁴ Why daylight has a positive effect on children’s sight is not clearly understood. This DLA project brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts who are working to identify the mechanisms involved. The objective is to find ways to protect children from myopia as they go through their school years.

References

1. Dolgin, E. (2015). The myopia boom. Nature News, 519(7543), 276-278.

2. Holden, B. A., Fricke, T. R., Wilson, D. A., Jong, M., Naidoo, K. S., Sankaridurg, P., Wong, T. Y., Naduvilath, T. J., Resnikoff, S. (2016). Global prevalence of myopia and high myopia and temporal trends from 2000 through 2050. Ophthalmology, 123(5), 1036-1042.

3. Wu, P. C., Tsai, C. L., Wu, H. L., Yang, Y. H., & Kuo, H. K. (2013). Outdoor activity during class recess reduces myopia onset and progression in school children. Ophthalmology, 120(5), 1080-1085.

4. He, M., Xiang, F., Zeng, Y., Mai, J., Chen, Q., Zhang, J., Smith, W., Rose, K., Morgan, I. G. (2015). Effect of time spent outdoors at school on the development of myopia among children in China: a randomized clinical trial. Jama, 314(11), 1142-1148.