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• What are the risks of myopia in children?

If you have ever walked past a kindergarten or primary school, you would probably have noticed quite a number of kids with spectacles on. That shouldn’t be too surprising to most parents: after all, some 65% of Primary 6 students in Singapore have myopia. This article will explore what are the risks of myopia in children and how to reduce the risk.

Myopia is one of the most common eye problems, affecting roughly a third of the world’s population. Scarily though, it’s not only the number of cases that are seeing a gradual uptick – the age at which children are experiencing symptoms of myopia is decreasing as well.

A study by a team of researchers in Singapore found that among 3009 Singaporean Chinese children aged between 6 and 72 months, around one in 10 had myopia – including 15.8% of children between 6 and 11 months old.

One good thing was that the presence of high myopia was as low as 0.2 percent. However, as we’ve made clear before, the risk of developing high myopia is greatest for those who develop myopia before the age of seven to eight. High myopia doesn’t just mean thicker spectacles – it comes with a host of serious eye conditions that are related to it, including retina detachment and glaucoma.

While there are a number of factors that come into play for the onset of myopia, including genetic factors, it is important to do our part to help our children keep their eyes safe, especially in today’s digital world.

How to reduce the risks of myopia in children?

Some simple ways to reduce the risk linked to the progression of myopia include taking frequent eye breaks from near work – whether that be at a computer, reading or doing homework – as well as working in a well-lit environment. Maintain a proper posture and keep a healthy distance from what you’re doing. To help keep an eye on your kids when you can’t, use the planoApp. It comes with a range of tools to do what we’ve just described above, helping you instill eye-healthy behaviour in your kids anytime, anywhere.

Behaviour that you want to encourage, on the other hand, includes plenty of time outdoors having fun in the sun. Another way to keep updated is to bring your children for frequent eye checks to monitor the progression of their myopia – that’ll make sure your child’s spectacles are never out of date. To that end, there’s always planoEyecheck, a quick and effortless way to set up an appointment with any of our partners.