Caution is better than short-sightedness!
Although the study situation is not yet 100 per cent clear, the trend is quite clear: there are more and more short-sighted children.
Why is that? It most likely has to do with the fact that children no longer spend as much time outside and therefore the time they spend looking into the distance is decreasing. Instead, children spend too much time indoors, use media for too long and look at their smartphones too much. It is assumed that this promotes short-sightedness.
The smartphone again ... it just keeps popping up in our videos and factsheets. And indeed, one of the major tasks of the current generation of parents is to maintain a healthy level of media and smartphone use - and above all to make sure that the children go outside!
The recommendation for preventing short-sightedness is to spend at least 80 to 120 minutes outside per day.
Once again, there is still no conclusive evidence on the subject. But there are clear trends that make it worthwhile to avoid this risk. "Better safe than sorry" or "Caution is better than short-sightedness".
Further interesting tips
Growing pains
Are you interested in winning a Nobel Prize for Medicine? Then we have a tip for you: try to find out why growing hurts even though it doesn't hurt. Sounds mysterious? It is a bit.
Ticks
My conclusion after almost 15 years as a paediatrician in private practice: tick-borne diseases are probably the most overestimated health risk - at least from the parents' point of view.
Eye screening
Today we are talking about a very important device in our practice: the eye screening device! We use this to check the eyes of small children from ten to twelve months of age. It is a far-sighted examination - because serious visual defects can be recognised and treated in good time.