New research suggests adding a daily outdoor activity into a child's school schedule could help prevent nearsightedness.
The addition of outdoor play at school for three years for children in Guangzhou, China was shown to have a statistically significant influence on rates of myopia (nearsightedness), the JAMA Network Journals reported. Myopia is reported to have reached epidemic levels in young adults living in some urban areas of East and Southeast Asia, and appears to be increasing in European and Middle Eastern populations.
There is currently no proven effective method for preventing the onset of myopia, but this new research suggests increasing outdoor activities could make a small difference.
"Given the popular appeal of increased outdoor activities to improve the health of school-aged children in general, the potential benefit of slowing myopia development and progression by those same activities is difficult to ignore. Although prescribing this approach with the intent of helping to prevent myopia would appear to have no risk, parents should understand that the magnitude of the effect is likely to be small and the durability is uncertain," said Michael Repka, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in an accompanying editorial.
The researchers looked at children between the grades of 1 and 12 in six intervention schools and six control schools. The children in the intervention schools were given one additional 40-minute class of outdoor activities per day and their parents were urged to encourage them to engage in outdoor activities after school hours and on holidays; the children in the control schools continued their regular pattern of activity.
Over the course of the three-year study, there were 259 cases of myopia among 853 eligible participants in the intervention group, and 287 cases among 726 eligible participants in the control group. Cumulative change in spherical equivalent refraction (myopic shift) proved to be significantly less in the in the intervention group than in the control group after three years.
"Our study achieved an absolute difference of 9.1 percent in the incidence rate of myopia, representing a 23 percent relative reduction in incident myopia after 3 years, which was less than the anticipated reduction. However, this is clinically important because small children who develop myopia early are most likely to progress to high myopia, which increases the risk of pathological myopia. Thus a delay in the onset of myopia in young children, who tend to have a higher rate of progression, could provide disproportionate long-term eye health benefits," the authors wrote.
The researchers noted further research is required in order to assess the long-term effects of outdoor activities.
