Students sit in an open glasses classroom in China for their lessons.

The simple, free solution to the myopia epidemic
(CNN, April 6, 2015)

Around the world, we're becoming collectively more near-sighted. Near-sightedness, or myopia, means nearby objects appear clearly, but those farther away look blurry.

The rates of myopia have doubled, even tripled, in most countries over the last 40 years, researchers say. Several places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have rates in the 80%. In South Korea, myopia rates among 20-year-olds have leaped from 18% in 1955 to over 96% myopia in 2011.

And it's a global issue -- rates of myopia are also rising in Western nations like Germany and the United States. "It's about 40% in the U.S., compared to about 25% in the 1970s," said Dr. Michael Chiang, clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

But researchers say reducing risk of myopia is easy, free and readily-available: Get some sunlight. Sometimes, though, the easiest solutions are the hardest to implement.

Many have long believed that reading, studying or staring at your phone caused short-sightedness. And there's the usual grumblings that young people spend way too much time glued to their screens. But researchers are focusing on a different cause.

"If children get outside enough, it doesn't matter how much study they do. They don't become myopic," said Ian Morgan, researcher at Australian National University. Researchers say kids and teens need to get sunlight during the critical years of their development while their eyeballs are still growing.

The mechanics of how sunlight protects their eyes are not clearly understood. One theory suggests that sunlight triggers the release of dopamine in the retina; another speculates that blue light from the sun protects from the condition. The solution is simple. Have kids "spend more time outside" said Seang Mei Saw, professor of epidemiology at the National University of Singapore.

To negotiate the expectations of parents and classes, researchers are experimenting ways to help students get increased exposure to sunlight. One of the studies underway is the "bright light classroom" where the school's walls and ceilings are made of see-through plastic that allows in light. Hundreds of students attend this unusual elementary school in Guangdong province.

"It's a potential way to increase the amount of light, in hopes of preventing myopia and allow kids to continue (their) education without inconvenience for them," Morgan said. Researchers want to measure the rates of myopia among students in these "bright light classrooms" compared with those in traditional classes.

Building schools costs money -- especially experimental see-through schools. But researchers say there are low-cost solutions. In one Taiwanese study, teachers locked the students out of the classroom during recess and lunch time. In that 2013 study, students boosted their time in sunlight by 80 minutes during the school day. Fewer children in that school became nearsighted compared with those from another school that didn't follow such a policy.

Researchers hope with greater understanding of this condition, far-sighted policies could save the next generation of children's eyesight.

(More: http://archimedes.soup.io/post/525426923/Why-are-we-short-sighted)