Long ago, I started reflecting on the fact that glasses are associated with nerds (like me), and started asking around.  Literally, every person I've ever asked who has severe myopia says he read heavily as a child.  Every person I've asked who, while intelligent, does not have glasses, said he did not start reading heavily until later in life (say, college), or not at all.  Hey - our bodies are made for working the ground, or shooting arrows, or cooking ... all arm's length or greater.  We're not made for books & computer screens. 

Naturally, since virtually everyone believes nearsightedness is inherited, I was stricken at the thought of our children being as nearsighteded as I am (dh is fairly myopic, too).  So I asked our eye doctor - does reading cause myopia?  He said no.  I asked him about the Inuit study.  He backtracked.  He stammered.  ... He admitted that yes, near work seems to be associated with an increased rate of myopia, but essentially, what are you gonna do?  Tell kids not to read?  I agreed, but said, what about encouraging good reading practices - lots of light, holding book as far away as you can, eye breaks, good posture, setting a limit on daily reading (kids like me could read literally 8hrs a day)...  He said sure.  :D

A few months later, when I took my daughter in, his substitute pulled the same thing - she claimed that "of course" my daughter had myopia, given my severe prescription.  I asked if she knew of any exercises to decrease myopia, or recommendations of doctors who did, and she wondered why, since it's genetic.  I asked her about the Inuits.  She backpedaled.  She finally admitted that it was probably 50/50 reading & genes, but what are you gonna do?  Tell kids not to read?

Fascinating.

So I searched for info and found the Myopia Manual.  It gives the results of nearly every study ever done on myopia & its causes.  The author clearly delineates the facts from his conclusions.  The final analysis is that myopia is a result of near work, while diet (namely, processed foods & sugar (e.g., Vanuatuans attend school 8hrs a day, but eat a traditional, unprocessed diet, & have 2% myopia)), insufficient sunlight, & heredity determine who of those doing heavy near work will become myopic. 

Just before Christmas, a study was released that found that sunlight may save kids' sight.  Young Singaporeans are nearly 90% nearsighted!  (30% just 40 years ago)  While it was at first supposed that they were extremely genetically predisposed to the effects of near work, it turns out that other ethnicities living in Singapore were experiencing the same epidemic of nearsightedness.  However, when children of identical ethnicities living in Singapore & Australia were compared, the ones in Australia (who did twice the reading, but spent four times as much time outside) had one tenth the myopia rate of the ones in Singapore.

Wow.

I came to the conclusion a while back (probably when my ob/gyn told me that lights while sleeping, even backlit clocks, contribute to cycle irregularities) that we probably should spend more time in the sun during the day & w/ far less light in the dark hours.  (What about skin cancer?  Someday I'll get to the link between sun exposure, skin cancer, vitamin D, and overall health...)  This is absolutely convincing evidence - our eyes were made for the bright sunshine, not the warm incandescent glow, or worse, the flickering fluorescent whiteness. 

Perhaps most interesting in the ABC article is what is their starting assumption, stated as fact: "the long-held view that education and close work are the key drivers of myopia."  Long-held?  Why did the doctors never tell us this?  Why do they just prescribe glasses and send us home, rather than helping us understand the factors so that we can make educated choices about our habits?  I can't tell you how many people I know *swear* that myopia is *purely* hereditary.

So is it near work?  Or is the processed diet & lack of sunshine that come along with increasing urbanization & time spent indoors in school instead of outside working?  Probably all, to what extent each, I don't know, but I'm not too worried about precisely which one - because good reading habits (light, distance, moderation), time outside, & eating real food benefit everyone.  I'll go with that.  (It *is* interesting that the Inuit women spent considerable time in dark igloos sewing, with no resulting myopia, before schooling was introduced.  (But did this start at age 5 or 6, as school does?)  Is it the change in diet that accompanied it?  The white flour & rice & bread?)

(Further evidence for the whole theory: optometry students were observed to have an increase in myopia during school sessions (which means less time outside, more time studying, and probably low-quality food grabbed between classes), while the increase stopped during each school break.)   Turns out, my instinct that God didn't make us myopic as a people was right.  In traditional societies, where modern schooling, diet, & indoor life are unheard of, the myopia rate is less than 2%.  Interestingly, the growing consensus among scientists is that there is very little genetic component at all.

Now stop reading this and take your kids outside!  :D