Recently, the news about “Civil Aviation recruiting pilots to relax their eyesight requirements” has become the focus of public opinion. However, behind this news reflects the real worries of China as a "big myopia".

Why is the incidence of myopia in Chinese teenagers so high? What factors have induced myopia? How can we effectively prevent and treat myopia? Recently, the reporter conducted an investigation and interview on the above issues.

The number of "small glasses" has increased, and children have myopia at the age of 3

Recently, some media quoted a World Health Organization study report that the number of Chinese myopia patients is as high as 600 million, almost half of China's total population.

Among them, the high school students and college students in China have more than 70% of their nearsightedness, and have increased year by year. The rate of teenage myopia is the highest in the world, and the myopia rate of primary school students is also close to 40%. In contrast, the primary and secondary school students in the United States have a myopia rate of only 10%.

According to the National Health Vision Report released by Peking University in 2015, without effective intervention, by 2020, the prevalence of myopia in China over 5 years old will increase to about 51%, and the number of sick people will reach 700 million. The population of high myopia will reach 4,000 to 51.5 million.

For the high incidence of myopia, ophthalmologists have also had a personal experience in recent years.

Fu Jing, director of the ophthalmology department of ophthalmology at a hospital in the capital, told reporters that from the experience of recent consultations, the incidence of myopia is getting higher and higher, the age of onset of children is getting smaller and smaller, and many children come to the hospital for the first time. The degree is already very high, and some children have myopia at the age of three or four.

Wu Xi, the chief physician of ophthalmology at a hospital in Beijing, has the same feelings. She told reporters that the patients who were admitted 20 years ago were treated with amblyopia and obliqueness, and myopia was less, and the age of onset of myopia was generally above the fourth grade. However, with the changes of the times, the popularity of electronic products, the incidence of myopia is getting higher and higher. Today, 70% of summer clinics are children with refractive errors, most of which are myopia problems. Some children find myopia in the admission examination.

“In the past, we thought that the incidence of myopia in rural children was lower than that in urban children, but now with the popularity of electronic devices, the incidence of myopia in rural children is also on the rise.” Wu Xi said, what is even more worrying is that people think that myopia The genetic factors do not dominate the mainstream, but if more and more children are nearsighted, genetic factors and genes may change in the future, and the quality of the entire nation may be affected.

What makes the child wear glasses early?

What factors have led to a rapid increase in the incidence of myopia in China? In the opinion of experts, over-use of electronic devices is the main cause.

"Environmental factors are a very important incentive. There are few outdoor activities, high intensity and continuous approach. Some children play mobile phones and watch iPads for more than an hour every day. Poor reading and pen holding habits can lead to myopia." Wu Xi told reporters.

She stressed that people's lifestyles have changed a lot. Some parents often show electronic products to their children in order to prevent their children from crying. However, prolonged exposure to such devices can cause damage to children's vision.

"Especially, some parents will let their children watch electronic products in the car, and watch electronic products in a dim and swaying environment, which will cause more damage to their children's vision." Wu Xi said.

She told reporters that the visual development of children under the age of 2 is not completely stereotyped, should not be exposed to electronic equipment, and bad stimulation will prompt children to have fast myopia. Preschoolers after the age of 2 can watch up to half an hour a day, and primary school students can watch electronic devices for up to 40 minutes a day.

In addition, in the opinion of experts, the level of awareness of the dangers of myopia among children and parents needs to be further improved.

"Myopia is irreversible once it is achieved, and the developmental myopia of adolescents is caused by the growth of the eye axis. As the body grows and develops, the myopia of children will increase. If the child is very young, it will develop myopia, adulthood. After that, it is likely to develop into high myopia." Fu Jing reminded.

Fu Jing said that myopia is not a trivial matter, because it affects not only vision, but also a full-eyed disease. "A person with high myopia of 600 degrees or higher has a higher risk of glaucoma, cataract, and retinal detachment in the future. People are much higher. This is a problem that cannot be solved by wearing glasses or laser correction."

High incidence of myopia leads to government attention

In fact, prevention and treatment of myopia has always been valued at the national level. For example, after the founding of New China, China pioneered eye exercises to protect young people's vision and played a positive role.

In 2016, in order to effectively control the incidence of myopia in Chinese children and adolescents, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the State Sports General Administration jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Prevention and Control of Children and Adolescents' Myopia".

The "Opinions" clearly encourages and advocates students to participate in outdoor activities, actively participate in physical exercise, especially table tennis, badminton and other sports activities that are beneficial to eye muscle exercise, maintain correct reading and writing posture, and reduce long-term use of eyes at close distances. Reduce the use of electronic video products to ensure adequate sleep and balanced nutrition.

In addition, the "Opinions" also emphasizes the establishment of a sound eye exercise system, the inclusion of two eye exercises per day into the curriculum, and the organization of students to do eye exercises. Ensure that the daily physical activity of students in the school is not less than one hour, and urge students to participate in outdoor activities during class time. It is necessary to effectively reduce the burden of students' academic work, not to increase the teaching time, and not to take up holidays, weekends and winter vacations to organize students to take classes, and to arrange students' homework time.

“It is important to emphasize that protective effects such as outdoor sports can be limited. The most important thing is to avoid excessive eye use and long-term exposure to electronic devices to develop healthy eye habits.” On the one hand, the school should let the children go out to exercise more during the class, on the other hand, they must play a good role in publicity and education to let the children know the serious harm of myopia.

[Prevention of myopia tips]

Control the duration of use of electronic devices

Prevention of myopia must first control the time of the single use and the total duration of the use of the electronic device.

Experts suggest that children should take a break after writing for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, and they should take a break after staring at the computer for 20 minutes.

Do more outdoor sports

A survey by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom showed that children who spend more than one hour outdoors outdoors have a 2% lower risk of myopia. Ensuring 14 hours of outdoor exercise per week is effective in preventing myopia. Therefore, more outdoor exercise for teenagers can also effectively prevent myopia.

Reasonable dietary structure

Ophthalmologists believe that children's picky eaters and partial eclipse are not conducive to protecting eyesight. Therefore, children's daily dietary structure should be reasonable, and food intake should be balanced with nutrients.

Wear glasses in time

When the child has symptoms such as rubbing his eyes and looking at objects, parents should take the child to the hospital in time to check if they have myopia, and wear glasses with appropriate degrees. You can't think that you can wear glasses because your child's myopia is too shallow. Long-term eye fatigue can lead to faster progression of myopia.

Distinguish between false myopia:

Experts stressed that children's vision problems may be caused by over-regulation of the lens, which may disappear after relaxation, which is called pseudo-myopia.

True myopia is caused by the lengthening of the eye axis and will not be eliminated by drugs or other means. Judging whether it is pseudo-myopia, is to see the degree of astigmatism after the optometry, if there is myopia, no is not. Therefore, you should not wear glasses at will, but you should go to a qualified institution for dilated optometry.

Experts recommend that children under the age of 12 use ciliary muscle numbness for dilated optometry, and for the 12 to 40 age group, it is recommended to use astigmatism. People over the age of 40 may not have dilated optometry.

Myopia children can use OK mirror

Children with myopia can also use the low concentration of atropine and Orthokeratology (also known as "OK Mirror") to help delay the development of myopia while maintaining outdoor sports.

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