Yang Lihua answers questions: 33% of parents believe that their children’s vision has deteriorated during the epidemic. How to delay myopia?

Recently, under the guidance of the Department of Physical Education, Health and Art Education of the Ministry of Education, and co-organized by People's Daily Online·People's Health and the National Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents Experts Propaganda Team, a series of popular science activities on myopia prevention and control were held online. 11 myopia prevention and control experts shared knowledge on eye care online.

Yang Lihua, director of the Wuhan Youth Vision Impairment Prevention and Control Center and deputy head of the National Comprehensive Prevention and Control Expert Delegation for Myopia in Children and Adolescents, explained issues related to myopia prevention and control in the program "How families and schools can cultivate children's healthy eye habits after returning to school."

Ding Huanxin/People's Picture

Q: Has children’s eyesight been affected during the epidemic?

Yang Lihua: Recently, Wuhan City organized an epidemiological survey to understand the status, changes and various influencing factors of students' vision health during the epidemic. The results showed that in the past three months, 33% of parents believed that their children's vision had deteriorated due to excessive exposure to electronic products and inability to participate in outdoor activities.

Through this survey, we should understand that incorrect eye behavior habits, electronic products and lack of outdoor sunlight activities are actually the biggest "killers" that affect our vision health.

Q: What kind of learning environment is more eye-friendly?

Yang Lihua: In terms of lighting, the desk should be placed in the best lighting position in the room. During the day, natural light should be fully utilized for lighting, but care should be taken to avoid direct light on the desk. When studying at night, in addition to turning on the desk lamp, some background auxiliary light sources should be added appropriately to reduce the indoor light and dark difference, so that the local light on the desk is in harmony with the surrounding environment. It is best to use an eye protection lamp with a lampshade and no flicker, placed opposite the writing hand, and the illumination should reach 300 lux. In addition, the room should be ventilated, especially during the current epidemic, this should be paid more attention to. Tables, chairs and benches should be properly configured so that children can maintain a correct reading and writing posture.

Q: What good habits can help prevent myopia?

Yang Lihua: First, we need to develop correct reading and writing habits. Second, we need to strictly control the time of using electronic videos and close-range eyes. For every 20 minutes of electronic video, we need to look at green plants 20 feet (6 meters away) away for at least 20 seconds. The continuous close-range eye use time should not exceed 40 minutes, and we must rest for 10 minutes between classes; third, we must insist on doing eye exercises carefully in the morning and afternoon every day, but we must pay attention to the hygiene of our hands, find the acupoints, and massage them moderately, so as to promote blood circulation around the eyes and reduce visual fatigue. In addition, we need to get enough sleep, 10 hours for primary school students and 9 hours for junior high school students. In terms of sunlight exercise, fourth, it is best to ensure that children have more than 2 hours of outdoor sunlight exercise from the age of 3. During the epidemic, children should go to the window to increase their exposure to sunlight. Fifth, in terms of nutrition, we should not be picky or partial to food, eat less sweets and fried foods, and eat more foods containing vitamin A, such as carrots, spinach, animal liver, etc.

Question: How to delay the progression of myopia?

Yang Lihua: As children with myopia grow older, their refractive power will increase every year as they grow and develop. It is not enough to just wear glasses and ignore it. Scientific and comprehensive intervention and control of bad behavior habits must be implemented to achieve vision correction and slow down the development of myopia. Usually, we must pay attention to maintaining healthy eye behavior and habits, control electronic videos and continuous close-up eye use time, strengthen daily eye muscle exercises and sunlight exercise. Pay attention to developing good visual behavior habits that combine work and rest with eye use. We must not only study well, but also protect our eyes.

Eyes are the windows to our soul. We should protect our eyes as we would protect our lives.