Too much time spent indoors and intensive near vision activity lead to more children suffering from near-sightedness, or myopia, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on World Sight Day 2024, on October 10.
Near-sightedness also called short-sightedness, is a condition which affects your distance vision — you can see objects that are near, but you can’t see clearly objects that are far away like road signs or writings on a blackboard.
The UN health agency recommended that taking regular breaks spending more time outdoors can reduce this risk.
The second Thursday of October is World Sight Day, an opportunity, according to WHO, to highlight the importance of protecting our eyes and vision, raise awareness of vision impairment and blindness, and promote eye and vision care.
While uncorrected vision impairment may impact education and social inclusion, simple solutions such as spectacles can make a world of difference, it observed.
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In May 2024, WHO launched the global SPECS 2030 initiative to ensure access to quality, affordable spectacles and related people-centred services for everyone who needs them.
It indicated that World Sight Day is also an opportunity to debunk myths regarding vision and move towards a world where all children are free from social stigma associated with wearing spectacles or other corrective interventions for their eyes and vision.
Reducing screen time and spending time outside matters
Research, WHO observed, shows that reducing screen time and spending time outside protects children from developing myopia, which means that parents, caregivers and educators have a central role to play in protecting the vision of our future generations.
It added that smoking and ultraviolet UV (too much sun) exposure should also be avoided, for example, by wearing sunglasses and hats when outdoors, to prevent eye diseases.
As noted, people can use its WHOeyes for vision testing in the comfort of their home, underscoring that regular eye and vision checks can help to identify issues at an early stage.
WHOeyes is a free mobile application that tests distance and near visual acuity (clarity of vision) and is suitable for anyone aged over eight years.
According to WHO, World Sight Day can serve as a reminder that adults should prioritise their eye health, too.
It is important to take regular breaks during activities such as reading or using digital devices, and wear eye protection when using tools and chemicals that could damage the eyes.
More than two billion people have a near or distance vision impairment and about one billion of these cases could have been prevented or fixed, data from WHO show.
Vision impairment poses an enormous global financial burden, with the annual global cost of productivity estimated to be $411 billion, as per WHO statistics.