HEALTH
Squint
and You
By the age of 10, one out
of every two Singaporean
children will suffer from
myopia, an incurable
condition that will only get
worse as the child gets
older. What can you do
about it?
Might Miss It
Singapore is one of the undisputed
myopia capitals of the world, with 80
percent of 18-year-olds here suffering
from short-sightedness. The only
other country that beats us is South
Korea – nine out of 10 young adults
there are thought to be myopic.
Incidentally, East Asian nations are
particularly susceptible to developing
myopia and many researchers agree
that it’s due to our cultural emphasis
on academic achievement, studying
indoors for long hours rather than
heading out into the sun. For a long
time, the scientific community were
hotly debating the extent of the
roles that environmental factors
and a person’s genes played in the
development of myopia. A rather
extensive study completed in 2012
by researchers from the Ian Morgan
of Australian National University
concluded that the environment
plays a far bigger role than genetics
when it comes to the development of
myopia. Tellingly, Chinese teenagers
who were raised in Australia, where
exposure to bright sunlight is more
likely, “show lower rates of myopia
than Chinese young adults
living in cities in South