The rate of myopia among children in elementary school last year was 44.35 percent, a record low over the past decade, Health Promotion Administration (HPA) data showed.
Given the high rate of myopia, also known as nearsightedness, in Taiwan, the government has in the past few years promoted children’s vision protection, and the HPA launched its “Vision Protection 123” campaign.
The HPA said that vision is like a “bankbook,” and parents should teach children to keep their eyes healthy and protect their vision from a young age, to prevent reduced vision later in life.
The agency’s campaign encourages parents to have their children’s eyes examined one to two times per year.
Children under the age of two should not watch screens, and parents should limit screen time for children over two years old, the HPA said.
Children should spend about two to three hours outdoors every day, and rest their eyes for 10 minutes after every 30 minutes of continuous screen time, it said.
The effort has had some positive effects, as the myopia rate in elementary-school students has fallen by 5 percent from 49.1 percent 10 years ago, it said.
Heavy academic pressure might cause students’ vision to worsen as they get older, as the myopia rate among sixth and seventh graders is 62.75 percent and 69.38 percent respectively, the agency said.
The myopia rate among junior-high school students was 73.59 percent, it added.
Tri-Service General Hospital Ophthalmology Department director Lu Da-wen (呂大文) said it is better to start improving myopia rates with preschool children.
The EU recommends a daily screen time limit of less than one hour for children under the age of six.
HPA Director-General Wang Ying-wei (王英偉) said that myopia prevention should start early, as it is a permanent condition and their diopter level — a unit of measurement of the refractive power of a corrective lens — can even fall by about 0.75 to 1 diopter per year.
Lu said that if elementary-school students with myopia reach 5 diopters by the time they graduate, they likely might have high myopia, at greater than 10 diopters, by the time they reach adulthood.
High myopia carries increased risks of glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration and retinal detachment, Lu added.
Most cataract cases were caused by high myopia, and the life-long risk of blindness in Asians with cataracts is about 25 percent, he said.
Commenting on a Nature magazine article that suggested that exposure to sunlight might increase the production of dopamine in the retina and prevent myopia, Lu said the study showed that the degrees of myopia in school-aged children in Australia were lower than those in Singapore, and that Australian children spent about two to three more hours outdoors than Singaporean children.
“However, it is not stimulation from ultraviolet rays [that causes dopamine production], but rather that the children spent less time looking at close objects during outdoor activities, as they would naturally look farther when outdoors, which can improve their nearsightedness,” he said.
Lu said that the myopia situation in Taiwan is getting worse, meaning that people with high myopia are diagnosed with higher diopter numbers at younger ages.
He urged people to learn about vision protection from childhood.
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