Tackling Myopia In Kids

The rate of myopia in children is increasing, both here in Hong Kong and elsewhere. We hear the details – and some ways to combat the problem – from Optometrist ANDY MEAU, founder and director of iSight Optometric Eye Care Center.

- Andy Meau

One of your specialties is controlling myopia in children; what is myopia?

It’s a physical elongation of the eyeball, where light is focused in front of the retina rather than directly on it. Typically, babies are born with short eyeballs, which grow to normal adult size by age six or seven. Sometimes, this growth can become too fast, and the eyeball can become too long, leading to the onset of childhood myopia. If left uncontrolled, there is an increased risk of developing vision-threatening eye diseases in the future, such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.

Who gets myopia?

We know that children of different ethnicity have a different risk of developing myopia; the risk is higher among Asians, for example. Myopia onset also correlates with the amount of time spent indoors and the amount of “near work”, which includes screens, books and so on. Poor posture and poor environmental lighting are also risk factors.

Genetically, a person with a myopic parent has three times the risk of developing myopia – six times if both parents are myopic. The prevalence of childhood myopia has nearly doubled in the last 10 years; in Hong Kong, the rate is around 20 percent in sixyear-olds, 60 percent in 12-year-olds, and nearly 85 percent in university students. I’ve definitely seen exponential growth of myopia in children year on year for the past 15 years – no surprise, in view of how much more time is spent on screens. We do a lot more preventive coaching these days, even when a child doesn’t have any signs of myopia. This allows us to set up goals to reduce the risk. Here are tips I offer the parents to slow down progression and delay the onset of myopia.