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Patsy Moy

If you reckon you're seeing more and more young children wearing glasses, there's nothing wrong with your eyes. 
Even the under-six crowd is growing more short-sighted, and the blame is being put on the playing of video games on computers, mobile phones and portable game devices. 
The proportion of children between the ages of two and six who were short-sighted nearly tripled to 6.3 per cent in 2006-07 from 2.3 per cent a decade earlier, a Chinese University study of 800 kindergarten pupils found. And the average prescription for their glasses was stronger.
The Department of Health says about 17 per cent of Primary One students have myopia. The rate rises to about 53 per cent among those who complete primary school. 
Professor Dennis Lam Shun-chiu,  chairman of the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Chinese University,  is alarmed by the epidemic of youthful myopia.
Speaking on a Commercial Radio programme yesterday, Lam said children's eyes could be affected if they played video games on public transport when the vehicles were moving.
 Other bad habits included spending too much time in front of computers and the television, he said.
 Lam advised parents to take their children for eye check-ups every year. He said children should also develop the habit of protecting their eyes by resting them by looking at distant objects for 30 seconds after every 30 minutes of reading. 
He recommended keeping a good distance when reading books, using computers and watching television. 
People tended to overlook the importance of eye care and check-ups, which could result in serious diseases like glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness in Hong Kong, he warned. 
Myopia results from elongation of the eyeball. The image of a distant object is focused in front of, instead of onto, the retina, resulting in a blurred image. Severe myopia is one of the risk factors for glaucoma, the Hong Kong Ophthalmological Society  says. 
Other risk factors include diabetes, hypertension, migraine, family history, age, trauma and steroid use.
Impaired vision
Yearly check-ups and taking reading breaks are recommended
By 2006-07, the proportion of children aged two to six with myopia had jumped from 2.3 per cent in 1996-97 to: 6.3%
About 17 per cent of Primary One pupils are short-sighted. By the time they complete primary school, this rises to: 53%



Video games blamed for rise in myopia among children