Abstract:
New Zealand optometrists perform more than a million eye examinations a year and by all accounts our eyesight is worsening. Dr Philip Turnbull, a research fellow at the Auckland University Optometry School, said myopia, or short-sightedness, was increasing world wide. Based on census and driver licensing data, about a quarter of New Zealand adults need to wear glasses or contact lenses for driving. Quite apart from the normal deterioration that goes with aging, one theory is that urban lifestyles are to blame for short-sightedness because our eyes get less opportunity to focus long distance. Turnbull is researching the impact of increased screen use and said it may be a factor in rising myopia rates in children. Although there are no New Zealand statistics, he said the situation here was likely to reflect Australian trends where a recent study showed a doubling of myopia in children aged seven and in 10 to 13-year-olds. "It was 4.4 per cent six years ago, and now it's gone up to 8.6 per cent. It's unlikely to be hugely different here. "It's difficult to tease out the factors. Reading time has also been implicated, it doesn't matter whether is on a tablet or on paper, the more time a child spends reading, the more likely they are to become myopic." Children's attitude to glasses has also changed and Turnbull said it wasn't uncommon for children to fake poor eyesight to get trendy glasses. "May be someone in their class has a particularly cool pair of frames and then you get a few coming in. That whole geek thing has absolutely gone."
