Protect the bright "vision" of children

Source: People's Daily - People's Daily

"Establish a regular vision screening system for primary and secondary school students", "The frequency of screening is not less than 2 times a school year", "Establish a vision health file for children and adolescents"... Not long ago, the National Health Commission launched the second batch of pilot projects for the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents nationwide, and issued the "Guidelines for Appropriate Technologies for the Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents (Updated Version)". Continuously increasing the promotion and demonstration of appropriate technologies for the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents is of great significance to the protection of children's vision health.

How to protect the vision of children and adolescents is a practical problem faced by every family, and it is also an examination question that the whole society must answer well. According to the data released by the National Health Commission, in 2020, the overall myopia rate of children and adolescents in China was 52.7%, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over 2019, but a decrease of 0.9 percentage points compared with 2018. Overall, the basic situation of the overall effectiveness of myopia prevention and control has initially shown that the early onset of myopia in students has been alleviated to a certain extent, and the development of low-grade myopia has slowed down to moderate and high myopia.

A child's bright future is inseparable from bright eyes. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: "The whole society must take action to jointly care for the eyes of children and let them have a bright future." "For some time, the myopia of chinese students has shown a high incidence and a trend of young age, which seriously affects the physical and mental health of children, which is a big problem related to the future of the country and the nation, and must be highly valued and cannot be allowed to develop." The 14th Five-Year Plan and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035 clearly state that childhood obesity and myopia should be effectively controlled. To make every child have bright eyes and a healthy body, it requires the joint efforts of the whole society.

In recent years, from the Ministry of Education and other eight departments to formulate the "Implementation Plan for the Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents" to the National Health Commission issued the "Guidelines for appropriate techniques for the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents", from clarifying the responsibilities of all parties to coordinating the joint efforts of various departments, from local conditions and multiple measures to the whole society to improve awareness and active participation, the comprehensive prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents has become more and more intense, and the prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents has achieved practical results. However, we must also realize that preventing myopia in children and adolescents is a tough battle and a protracted battle. In recent years, the whole society has become more and more vocal about taking good care of children's eyes, and has put forward higher realistic requirements for the next work.

What causes myopia? How can we prevent it? Some ophthalmologists remind that the most important way to prevent myopia is to encourage children to go outdoors and embrace nature. Controlling the use of electronic products, correcting eye habits, and ensuring sleep and nutrition are also methods advocated by experts. Based on these understandings, some schools take the strengthening of extracurricular exercise as the starting point to reduce the burden of students' homework; some places have worked hard to improve hardware facilities, equipped with adjustable desks and chairs that meet the standards, sitting posture correctors, etc. Practice has proved that many methods are effective and have been generally welcomed by children and parents.

Prevention of myopia, prevention is greater than treatment. For children and adolescents of different ages, the measures for myopia prevention and control are different. How to move the threshold forward to make the prevention and control work more targeted? How to improve the rate of eye behavior improvement and myopia prevention and control knowledge in children and adolescents? These require schools and relevant departments to come up with more scientific and accurate measures. For example, increase the publicity of science popularization, promote the linkage between home and school, guide students to pay attention to their own vision status, create a good atmosphere of government leadership, departmental cooperation, expert guidance, school education, and family concern, and achieve early monitoring, early detection, early warning, and early intervention.

Protecting the bright "vision" of children and adolescents is the common expectation of the whole society, and it also requires urgent action. For parents, guide and help children to have more outdoor activities, get closer to nature, develop good eye habits, and let the eyes get full relaxation and good rest, may wish to start from now on.

People's Daily (05/14/2021)