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Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates

Nature reports that an unexpected factor may be behind a growing epidemic of nearsightedness: time spent indoors. From the article: Because the eye grows throughout childhood, myopia generally develops in school-age children and adolescents. About one-fifth of university-aged people in East Asia now have this extreme form of myopia, and half of them are expected to develop irreversible vision loss. This threat has prompted a rise in research to try to understand the causes of the disorder — and scientists are beginning to find answers. They are challenging old ideas that myopia is the domain of the bookish child and are instead coalescing around a new notion: that spending too long indoors is placing children at risk. “We're really trying to give this message now that children need to spend more time outside,” says Kathryn Rose, head of orthoptics at the University of Technology, Sydney.

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  1. Re:Unfortunately by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But NOT going outside increases your risks of bone deformity from vitamin D deficiency, and now also increased incidence of myopia.

    However, the REAL problem is that helicopter mummsy and daddsy are TERRIFIED that pedobear will rape little timmy and throw him away in an old icechest, because Fox News said so.