Comment by Projectiboga
1 year ago
There was a paper around 15 years ago comparing kids in Singapore and expat kids of same ethnic group in Australia. Much lower myopia in the expat community's kids, whom spend more time outside. When I mentioned it to a physician I knew from my kid's school he said the trick is shifting focus from farther away back to close. I live in NYC I got my kid looking at the features on buildings near us, we are lucky to have good views from a small walk up. So the trick is to excersize focus, looking further down the road or street and then back to something real close. Me and my wife have myopia, kid is 20/20 and has exited the risk age now.
> the trick is shifting focus from farther away back to close
Hence the 20:20:20 guideline that says after 20 mins of near work, one should spend at least 20 seconds looking at an object 20 feet away. The same principle applies to extended contraction of your arm, core, eye or other muscles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm_of_accommodation
Cool trick for knowing when to use whom: if it can be replaced by he/she/they, it should be who. If it can be replaced by him/her/them, it should be whom. In this case, "whom spend more time outside", could not be written "them spend more time outside" but could be written "they spend more time outside" thus it should be "who spend more time outside".
The high levels of light outside almost certainly helps too.
The reason for this seems to be
1) extended depth of field with a smaller pupil in bright sunlight (smaller aperture) that keeps objects at a wider range in focus
2) biochemical cascade responding to certain wavelengths in sunlight that produce a “stop growth” signal in the retina