Today, people's living conditions are getting better and better, but this "good" change is not fully synchronized with the physical fitness of the next generation.
Although the post-00s and post-10s are getting taller and taller, there are more and more small fat people in the crowd, and more and more children wearing glasses.
This is not "the world around you" – the World Vision Report released by the World Health Organization in 2019 shows that China is the number one myopia country, with more than 600 million people suffering from myopia.
1 in 3 primary school students has myopia, and the myopia rate of junior high school students is already higher than 70%.
Text | Canghai ed. | Roxie figure | Four Elephant Design Department
The child's eyes are getting worse and worse
In addition to the large number of myopia patients overall, the problem of myopia in China is also prominent, and the myopia rate of adolescents has unfortunately become the first in the world. Between 2010 and 2014, the overall visual impairment rate of adolescents rose from 57.4% to 62.2%, and more than 60% of adolescents became "myopic".
Since 2014, the overall myopia rate among adolescents has begun to decline, but the myopia rate among secondary school students remains high.
According to a survey by the National Health Commission in 2020, the myopia rate in the primary school stage in the mainland has risen at an alarming rate, from 12.9% in the first grade to 59.6% in the sixth grade, which is equivalent to an increase of 9.3 percentage points for each grade.
This also shows that kindergartens and primary schools are the key age stages for the prevention of myopia, and if you want to stay away from myopia, you really have to start with dolls.
What factors are harming your child's vision
If you ask parents why their children are short-sighted, nine out of ten parents will say that it is because children play too many electronic products - "When we were young, we couldn't even touch the computer, and there were naturally fewer people who were short-sighted. ”
Indeed, today's children are exposed to electronics and the Internet very early. In 2020, the Internet penetration rate of minors on the mainland has reached 94.9%, and more than one-third of primary school students have begun to use the Internet before school age, and the age of first-time internet contact is getting younger and younger.
The data can also support the effects of excessive use of electronic products on adolescent vision. In the period of home anti-epidemic in 2020, schools can only carry out teaching activities online, and many students are locked at home and attend classes through electronic devices, which leads to a further increase in the myopia rate of adolescents.
According to the survey, in the Wuhan area where the epidemic is most severe, the detection rate of poor vision among primary and secondary school students increased significantly in 2020, from 43.04% in 2019 to 51.04%.
However, although the excessive use of finished electronic products is related to myopia, if children suffer from myopia, they are not necessarily the "pot" of electronic products. Multinational studies have shown that the causes of myopia are very complex and have not yet been conclusive, but it is generally believed that genetic and environmental factors work together to cause myopia. Among them, environmental factors are the main cause of myopia.
The genetic factors of myopia, to put it simply, children with myopia in their parents are also more likely to be myopic, especially parents with high myopia, and it is easier to inherit the "myopia gene" to their offspring.
Age, gender, and even race can affect a person's chances of developing myopia. Surveys by the National Health Commission show that adolescents have a higher rate of myopia among adolescents than boys. From the perspective of race, East Asians are more likely to be short-sighted, Europeans are relatively prone to farsightedness, and Africans are generally better in vision.
Environmental factors are relatively more diverse, eating, drinking, living, traveling, learning and various living habits in sports, may affect the probability of a person getting myopia.
According to the "2014 Chinese Students Physical Fitness and Health Survey Report", students in economically developed provinces in the east are relatively more likely to suffer from myopia, and the myopia rate of 7-22-year-old Han students in Jiangsu and Shanghai is even more than 70%, while in the same province, the myopia rate of urban students is generally higher than that of rural students.
These data are also in line with people's common sense of life, that is, the schoolwork burden of urban students is relatively heavy, and excessive use of the eyes will affect vision.
Another survey of more than 50,000 6-18-year-olds in six provinces and cities explained in part other factors that make urban students less likely to see themselves: shorter sleep times, less physical activity, and so on.
The eighth national student physique and health survey conducted in 2019 also found that the myopia rate of students who slept enough every day was 47.8%, while among students who did not sleep enough, the myopia rate reached 67.8%.
Similarly, during the epidemic, children's time spent in outdoor activities has decreased significantly, which is presumably one of the factors contributing to the increase in the prevalence of myopia in adolescents in 2020.
The only way to defeat the "incurable disease" is to rely on prevention
Once suffering from myopia, all kinds of inconveniences when wearing glasses, not wearing glasses and close to "unable to take care of themselves", people are in a dilemma. Worse still, myopia is not a single disease, but can also lead to a variety of eye diseases, such as strabismus, glaucoma, cataracts, retinal detachment, etc., hidden risks.
In recent years, countless people want to "cure" myopia, which undoubtedly provides an outlet for the development of ophthalmic medical enterprises. According to Oriental Wealth, from 2013 to 2017, the overall size of the mainland ophthalmology market increased from 46.7 billion yuan to 86.6 billion yuan, almost doubling, and it is more likely to exceed 100 billion yuan in the future.
In fact, the principle of myopia is that the eye axis becomes longer, and if you want to "cure" myopia, you must shorten the already elongated eye axis. But at the current level of medicine, the process of lengthening the eye axis is irreversible, and there is no way to shorten the eyeball. Myopia is really an "incurable disease".
There are a variety of products on the market that claim to cure myopia, in addition to "eye massage", "myopia eye patches" and the like, the so-called "vision healing headphones", "longan goji berry formula", "mind healing" and other more magical, obviously it is an eye disease, but to use the song, drink soup, and even the idea of the work of this unscientific method to solve.
Even the low-concentration atropine eye drops approved for marketing in public tertiary hospitals are not the "miracle drug" for the treatment of myopia, it has a good "myopia control effect", and the safety of long-term use needs to be further verified.
After developing myopia, the more common option is to correct vision by wearing glasses or surgery. It must be pointed out that "correction" ≠ "treatment", and those who claim to be able to "cure" myopia are most likely to want to cut leeks.
If you want to overcome the problem of myopia, the most reliable way is to prevent problems before they occur.
Relevant studies pointed out that eye habits, outdoor exercise time, whether sleep is sufficient, and even the sugar content and air pollution index of intake affect children's vision, so the prevention of myopia must start from many aspects. Protecting your child's eyes may be more important than just "chicken babies".
Chasing and playing with friends on the way out of school, running and jumping, was once the youth memory of a generation, with the evolution of the city, high-rise buildings rose from the ground, leaving children with no space but not before, and many teenagers struggled to move up in the pressure and expectations.
Perhaps, increasingly superior living conditions are only the first step to healthy growth.