--FILE--A young female near-sighted Chinese student wearing glasses plays a mobile game on her iPad tablet PC next to her classmates during a break be
Image details
Contributor:
Imaginechina Limited / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
W8XY2EFile size:
34.5 MB (1.1 MB Compressed download)Releases:
Model - no | Property - noDo I need a release?Dimensions:
4256 x 2832 px | 36 x 24 cm | 14.2 x 9.4 inches | 300dpiDate taken:
29 September 2013Photographer:
ImaginechinaMore information:
--FILE--A young female near-sighted Chinese student wearing glasses plays a mobile game on her iPad tablet PC next to her classmates during a break between classes at a primary school in Lanzhou city, northwest China's Gansu province, 29 September 2013. The number of Chinese wearing glasses is rising. Most new adoptees are children. In 1970 fewer than a third of 16- to 18-year-olds were deemed to be short-sighted (meaning that distant objects are blurred). Now nearly four-fifths are, and even more in some urban areas. A fifth of these have "high" myopia, that is, anything beyond 16 centimetres is unclear. The fastest increase is among primary school children, over 40% of whom are short-sighted, double the rate in 2000. That compares with less than 10% of this age group in America or Germany. The incidence of myopia is high across East Asia, afflicting 80-90% of urban 18-year-olds in Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The problem is social rather than genetic. A 2012 study of 15, 000 children in the Beijing area found that poor sight was significantly associated with more time spent studying, reading or using electronic devices, along with less time spent outdoors. The biggest factor in short-sightedness is a lack of time spent outdoors. Exposure to daylight helps the retina to release a chemical that slows down an increase in the eye's axial length, which is what most often causes myopia. Schoolchildren in China are often made to take a nap after lunch rather than play outside; they then go home to do far more homework than anywhere outside East Asia. The older children in China are, the more they stay indoors, and not because of the country's notorious pollution.