If you have myopia (nearsightedness), can you pass nearsightedness on to your children? Yes, you can. Having myopic parents greatly increases a child’s risk of developing myopia.

Due to heredity and other risk factors, myopia is reaching epidemic proportions – with more than 50% of the population expected to be myopic by 2050. That’s worrying, as having moderate to severe myopia greatly increases the risk of developing sight-threatening eye diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration later in life.

What Is Myopia?

If you have myopia, distant objects will appear blurred. This happens when your cornea or eye lens is oval-shaped and excessively curved. As a result, the light entering your eye focuses images in front of your retina instead of directly on it, causing blurred vision.

Can Myopia Be Inherited? What the Stats Say

The answer is yes, myopia can be passed on from parents to children. There are 40 genes that influence the eye’s development and shape, and these could be responsible for nearsightedness.

Children with one myopic parent are 1.5x more likely to develop the condition, and the risk is tripled if both parents have myopia. This makes getting a comprehensive eye exam a must for any child of nearsighted parents.

Other risk factors include spending less than two hours a day outdoors and engaging in “near work” activities like reading and spending time on an electronic device, such as a computer or cell phone. Fortunately, there are ways to manage, slow and sometimes halt myopia progression.

What’s Myopia Management?

Myopia management is a systematic approach to preventing the progression of myopia. It includes lifestyle changes and treatments that help keep your child’s myopia from progressing.

​​We use the latest technology to ensure your child’s vision remains stable and healthy for years to come.

Protect Your Child’s Vision With Myopia Management

Let us help your child diminish the risk of developing ocular disease and vision loss with our effective myopia management program. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Tahmina Arieb at Little Lake Family Eye Care Myopia Center in Barrie. We’ll use the latest technology to ensure your child’s vision remains stable and healthy for years to come.

Our practice serves patients from Barrie, Ontario, Midland, Oro-Medonte, and Wasaga Beach, Ontario and surrounding communities.

Q: What are some ways I can reduce my child’s screen time?

• A: It isn’t easy to change habits, but as a family, you can work together to reduce screen time. Try the following:- Set limits on total amount of screen time per day
  – Create routines around screen use–such as after homework and chores
  – Model healthy screen use for your child
  – Talk to your children about why it is important to limit screen time
  – Engage in physical activity and outdoor sports as a family

Q: When Does Myopia Typically Develop?

• A: Myopia begins in children as young as 6 and tends to progress until roughly the age of 20. The more it progresses, and the higher the prescription, the greater your child’s risk of developing potentially sight-threatening eye conditions, such as cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and retinal detachment later in life.

Myopia — nearsightedness — is an epidemic. According to the World Health Organization, 27% of the world’s population has myopia, and this number is expected to rise to 50% by 2050.

Myopia almost always begins in childhood and can progress rapidly until the late teens or early twenties. Children with moderate or severe myopia are at a much greater risk of developing eye conditions that can cause vision loss and even blindness.

Fortunately, there are proven ways to slow and sometimes halt myopia’s progression during childhood, to safeguard your child’s vision for a lifetime.

What Causes Myopia?

Myopia is often inherited, but other risk factors include spending several hours a day indoors, engaged in ‘near work’ like reading and looking at electronic screens.

Myopia occurs when the eyeball grows longer, which causes light rays entering the eye to focus in front of your retina rather than on your retina, resulting in blurry vision.

How Myopia Can Impact Your Child

Nearsightedness can affect your child in many ways:

Difficulties at School and While Playing Sports

Sometimes parents don’t realize their child is experiencing blurry vision due to myopia until they receive a poor report card or do poorly on school tests.

Eyestrain

Trying to focus on faraway objects when they appear blurry often results in eyestrain. Yet many parents and teachers don’t realize that a child’s headaches, tired, burning or itchy eyes, blurry vision, and neck and shoulder pain may be caused by myopia.

Challenges Playing Sports

When you try to catch a ball, aim for a target or locate a goal post, you need to see clearly at a distance. Nearsightedness can interfere with a child’s ability to succeed on a sports field.

Why Is Myopia Management Important?

Unfortunately, myopia isn’t only about difficulty seeing faraway objects. Moderate to severe myopia increases a child’s risk of developing serious eye conditions in the future. They include:

• Glaucoma
• Retinal detachment
• Cataracts
• Myopic maculopathy

What is Myopia Management?

Myopia management is the area of optometry devoted to slowing down and even halting the progression of myopia in childhood. Myopia can be managed with a customized program that uses specialty contact lenses, multifocal lenses or atropine drops to control myopia. The sooner a child’s myopia is managed, the lower the risk of myopia-related complications in adulthood.

To find out how myopia management can transform your child’s vision, schedule an appointment with Dr. Tahmina Arieb at Little Lake Family Eye Care Myopia Center in Barrie.

Our practice serves patients from Barrie, Ontario, Midland, Oro-Medonte, and Wasaga Beach, Ontario and surrounding communities.

Q: Can Myopia Be Cured?

• A: There is no cure for myopia, but myopia management has been scientifically proven to slow and sometimes halt myopia’s progression. LASIK and other laser surgeries aren’t an option until a child with myopia reaches adulthood and their eyes have stopped growing.

Q: What is High Myopia?

• A: High myopia is a more severe form of regular myopia, usually above -3.00 dioptres. Children who develop high myopia often have rapidly progressing myopia that begins in early childhood.

Reference

• https://docs.google.com/….Un9BBl9UZhpzq4IDpBfB_UAyaJfI60AQg/edit
• https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/nearsightedness/symptoms-causes/
• https://www.who.int/blindness/causes/MyopiaReportforWeb.pdf

Many of us are spending more time in front of screens, and kids are no exception. Kids socialize on their phones and play video games, and may have spent a large part of the covid pandemic learning online.

However, research has shown that too much screen time is unhealthy for adults and kids. For this reason, it’s important to teach children to adopt healthy screen-time habits.

How Does Screen Time Affect the Eyes?

The Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health study (2019), found that excessive screen time was linked to higher obesity rates, and a tendency to eat more junk foods and exercise less.

The eyes, in particular, are adversely affected by hours spent in front of the screen. This is because screens emit blue light, which has shorter wavelengths and more energy than regular light, and the intensity of the light strains the eyes. There are also questions concerning the damage it can cause to the retina.

Screen time has also been linked to higher levels of myopia in young people, according to an Anglia Ruskin University study (2021). Extensive time spent texting or watching videos on a phone led to a 30% higher risk of myopia, or nearsightedness, in young people, and combined with excessive computer use, the risk rose to 80%.

Another worrying factor is excessive exposure to blue light on the circadian rhythm, an internal clock that indicates when we should be asleep or awake. Hours of blue light exposure prior to going to bed can throw off these patterns and interfere with sleep.

How to Reduce Your Child’s Screen Time

Now the question is how should you implement these new rules? Here are 5 tips to help your child develop healthy habits while they’re still young, and help them preserve their mental and physical well-being, as well as their vision.

Set Limits

Set rules that are clear and easy to adhere to. Think about the number of hours per day you’re willing to allow your children to use the screen either for fun or for homework—factoring in a bit extra for holidays and weekends. For instance, one 1 hour per day during the week and 2-3 on the weekends. Also consider times that should be screen-free, such as during meals, before completing homework or chores, or an hour or two before bedtime.

Get Into a Routine

Once you’ve determined how much screen time should be permitted, create a routine that is manageable and easy to stick to. Setting a structure will reduce disagreements because everyone will know what’s expected of them. We recommend writing up the rules and posting them near the computer or in the family room.

For instance, assign each child an hour of screen time a day and ask them to sign up for specific slots. Leave the dinner hour vacant so no one is using screens at the time.

Set An Example

Setting rules specifying when screen time is allowed and for how long is fairly simple, but following them is a whole other thing! Modeling behavior can positively influence your kids, as they are more likely to abide by the rules if they see you setting limits on your screen time as well. Working together to limit screen time can engender a feeling of cooperation and shared goals. Instead of texting or scrolling or watching videos, spend more time together as a family doing things everyone enjoys.

Discuss WHY Screen Time Should Be Limited

Kids should not only know what the rules are but the reasons behind them. Discuss why it’s important to reduce screen time, including health issues that can arise, and explain how too much blue light can affect their eyes. Understanding the reasons behind rules can make them easier to follow.

Encourage Physical Activity, Particularly Outdoors

Your child might forget about screen time when engaged in fun activities that get the body moving. In fact, several studies have shown that children who spend a significant amount of time playing outdoors lower their risk of developing myopia (nearsightedness). Other studies have linked “near work,” such as reading and spending too much time on digital devices, to the development and progression of myopia. Myopia is more than simply an inconvenient eye condition that requires frequent correction—it can have serious sight-threatening consequences in adulthood. Namely, macular degeneration, retinal detachment, glaucoma, and even cataracts. The faster the progression, and the younger the child, the greater the risk!

So encourage your child to play outdoors for at least 30-60 minutes each day, with siblings, friends or as part of a sports team. Perhaps you can take a walk or a bike ride with them after work, or throw a Frisbee — essentially helping them get into the habit of having fun without depending on screens.

If your child has already developed myopia and you want to limit its progression, contact us today. Dr. Tahmina Arieb at Little Lake Family Eye Care Myopia Center can help reduce or slow down myopia progression so they can live their best life.

Our practice serves patients from Barrie, Ontario, Midland, Oro-Medonte, and Wasaga Beach, Ontario and surrounding communities.

Q: Does blue light affect myopia?

• A: A study in the International Journal of Ophthalmology (2018) has shown a link between extended exposure to blue light and nearsightedness or myopia. That’s because blue light has a shorter wavelength and its high frequency penetrates the front of the retina, and can potentially lead to nearsightedness. That said, there’s still more research to be done on the link between the two.

Q: What is myopia management necessary?

• A: Myopia management helps slow myopia progression using specific proven treatments methods. This also involves making lifestyle changes, such as reducing screen time and spending more time outdoors. The goal is to keep the level of myopia as low as possible in order to reduce your child’s risk of developing vision-threatening eye diseases later in life.
• References

• https://hootmyopiacare.com/how-to-reduce-your-childs-screen-time/
• https://www.allaboutvision.com/en-gb/digital-eye-strain/screen-time/
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211007122131.htm

Do you notice your child squinting to read or sitting too close to the television or computer screen?

If so, you’re not alone.

The incidence of myopia — nearsightedness — has risen dramatically over the past few decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation even worse. According to research studies, the increased amount of time children have spent indoors due to lockdowns, coupled with more time learning and playing on digital devices, has led to what several optometric and ophthalmological organizations are calling an “epidemic.”

According to the World Health Organization, around 30% of the world’s population has myopia, and this figure is expected to increase to a whopping 50% by 2050.

That’s worrying because moderate to high myopia in childhood raises the risk of developing sight-threatening eye diseases like macular degeneration and glaucoma later in life.

Although many cases of myopia are inherited, there is a growing body of evidence that the less time children spend outdoors and the more time they spend staring at a computer or mobile screen contributes to the onset and/or progression of nearsightedness.

What Is The Connection Between Screen Time and Myopia?

While eye doctors have long suspected that excessive screen time can contribute to the development and progression of myopia, they don’t know exactly why.

What is known: when children engage in long hours of “near work” activities such as looking at a computer or reading a book, the shape of their eyes can change from a healthy round shape to an elongated myopic shape.

At the same time, scientists are trying to determine whether the lower incidence of myopia and its progression among children who spend at least 2 hours a day outdoors is due to less screen time, looking into the distance while playing, or perhaps thanks to some inherent benefit of sunshine.

How to to Prevent Your Child From Developing Myopia

The ancient Greek expression “moderation in all things” is particularly apt when it comes to managing your kids’ screen time. Here are some tips to protect your child’s eyes:

• Set a reasonable amount of time per day for screen time, taking homework or school projects into account, and allow slightly more on the weekends.
• Make it a team effort: involve the entire family in screen time accountability, with each person — including parents — making a commitment to spend less time on-screen.
• Install apps and software that will set time limits for using video and gaming sites, for example.
• Pursue non-screen activities as a family, such as trips to the library or park.
• Schedule annual eye exams for your child.

What If My Child Already Has Myopia?

Although myopia can be corrected with eyeglasses and contact lenses, prescription eyewear doesn’t prevent myopia from progressing. Refractive surgery isn’t an option for children or teenagers because their eyes are still growing.

However, there is a way to slow or halt myopia’s progression.

Myopia management is a scientifically proven way to reduce myopia progression by as much as 78%, depending on the severity of a child’s myopia, their age and the type of myopia management program prescribed by your child’s eye doctor.

One of the keys to managing myopia and limiting its severity is diagnosing it early. Schedule an eye exam with Dr. Tahmina Arieb at Little Lake Family Eye Care Myopia Center in Barrie if you’re concerned that your child may have myopia.

Q: How does an eye doctor diagnose myopia?

• A: An optometrist will diagnose myopia with:A refraction assessment test
  An eye health examDuring the refraction assessment test the eye doctor will put a mask-like device with wheel-like lenses of different magnifications in front of the patient’s eyes to see which combination of lenses helps the patient see most clearly.For an eye health exam, the eye doctor may administer eye drops that dilate the pupils to allow a clear view to the back of the eye.

Q: What are the Long-Term Risks of Myopia?

• A: The more nearsighted a child is, the greater their risk of developing serious conditions like retinal detachment, glaucoma, cataracts and macular degeneration in adulthood. All of these conditions can lead to vision loss, including blindness. The goal of myopia management is to slow and hopefully stop the progression of myopia early, to protect a child’s eye health as they grow.

References

• https://www.healio.com/…/request-update-on-cdc-myopia-prevention-efforts
• https://www.allaboutvision.com/coronavirus/myopia-in-children-chinese-study/
• https://www.theguardian.com/…/eyeballs-screens-vision-nearsightedness-myopia