A remarkable story caught my attention this morning on the radio, having to do with a child’s vision and the American withdrawal from nature that has occurred over the last 30 years. Not vision in the “visionary” sort of context, but literally how human eyesight is formed during childhood. Over the past 30 years, nearsightedness has increased 66% for Americans between the age of 12 and 54. Increased amounts of near-work activities like watching TV and playing video games would appear to be the culprit. But no. Apparently we are more nearsighted because children spend less time outdoors. To have vision, a child must spent time outdoors. Why? The best working hypothesis by Dr. Don Mutti (of the College of Optometry at the Ohio State University) is that there is something about directly experiencing outdoor light as a child that is critical to the health of human eyesight. Intriguing! For more check out a research article by Susan Vitale and others in last month’s Archives of Opthamology

Posted on January 11th, 2010 in

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