Have Your Kids Play Outside More, Their Eyesight Will Thank You

A new study suggests that children who spend more time outside are less likely to suffer from short-sightedness.

Two new studies have been added to show that daylight plays an even more important role in preventing the condition. The daylight helps ease levels of the brain chemical dopamine in the eyeball, which is often associated with short-sightedness. More time spent outside could possibly lower this risk in children.

Short-sightedness, or myopia, is an eye condition that causes a person to see things clearly close-up but struggle to see things when they are far away.

In childhood it is correctable, but it is also linked to the development of severe forms of the eye disorder in adulthood, which increases the risks for potentially blinding diseases such as glaucoma and retinal detachment.

Various findings suggest that the rates of short-sightedness are rapidly developing, particularly in developed countries. For instance, there has been a 65 percent increase in the United States of short-sightedness since 1970.

 Although it often inherited, researchers are now assessing environmental factors to help explain why rates are rising so rapidly in some populations.

The Taiwanese study observed 333 students who spent their break between lessons in the playground. These children, many of whom had formerly spent recess indoors, now spent a total of 80 minutes per day outdoors. 

A nearby school acted as the control group because children were not forced to spend their break outdoors.

Students at both schools received eye examinations at the study outset and one year later.

The results showed that significantly fewer children became short-sighted or shifted toward short-sightedness in the school that required outdoor breaks, compared with the control school.

The researchers recommended that primary schools should add frequent breaks and other outdoor activities to their daily schedules to help protect children's eye development and vision.

"Because children spend a lot of time in school, a school-based intervention [such as an outdoors break] is a direct and practical way to tackle the increasing prevalence of myopia," said the leader of the study, Pei-Chang Wu, of Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Findings from the study were published in the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.