Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
I beleive studies have shown that *for children* lots of close work (e.g. reading) may cause a existing inherited tendency to short-sightedness to manifest.
The American Optometric Association says |
That's true, there was a study done many years ago (please don't ask me for a reference as it was in one of my text books while studying to become an Optician) about why there was almost zero incidences of myopia in the Inuit peoples, turns out that the vast majority of them (at the time not sure about now) were illiterate and therefore did not read as children. This was postulated at the time as a possible reason for the higher incidence of myopia among western civilisation. Of course it could just be genetics which weren't as well understood at the time
There are many possible causes of myopia, the most common being the eye being slightly too long for the focal length of the lens when at rest. It is thought that
excessive near work when the eye is developing can cause a pre-existing tendency to near/short-sightedness to manifest as you quite rightly pointed out. What constitutes excessive however is up to debate and will probably never be able to be answered with any certainty
