Some time ago I heard on the radio about a reseach that show that there is a connection between reading a lot of books and later developing the need for glasses.
This of course has been regarded as a myth, the stereotype with books and glasses, etc, but the research showed that it was not a myth, there was a link between the two.
I’ve been googling on this for a “cite”, but can’t find any text about a connection between glasses and reading. I’m turning to you if you could help me find a source that either confirms the connection or dispute it.
The thing that seems most logical from what I’ve heard, it ain’t reading, but straining that can activate the process causing the eyeball to stretch in the crucial early years pre-puberty. Bad lighting is 1 culprit (more below), but different-sized font is currently thought to play a strong part. I was forced to study the Talmud, which is notorious for (among other things) having print in many different font sizes - some of them ridiculously low (memory guesstimate - size 1). Opthalmologists theorize that all that adjusting focus & squinting is too much burden on young eyes. I can remember having normal vision before starting this studying (age 11) straining & getting headaches during the 6 years of religious study, and more importantly *seeing the same effect in some classmates. *There was no correlation to intelligence - some of the stupids needed glasses, some of the smarties didn’t. By year 5 (age 16), vision was bad enough to need glasses for everyday activity.
Night lights - a study on monkeys, whose eyes were sewed almost but not completely shut, demonstrated that squinting in dim light caused myopia (or more accurately, activated the myopia process in those who were prone). The other control group monkeys either had normal lighting in their rooms, or were in complete darkness. From this the scientists deduced that kids with nightlights in their rooms (presumably afraid of the dark) were more likely to develop myopia. Lesson? Either leave a normal-strength light on or get the kid to sleep in the dark.
Of interest, I qualified on both 1. and 2. - and have myopia. Both parents had excellent vision until very late in life, and then needed only reading glasses. Additionally, in their memories all 4 of *their *parents also had good vision, not needing glasses for distance.
My router broke down so I’ve been off line for a few days, but now I’m back. Back to thank you both for your replies. Very interesting to read about your experience, benbo1, and thank you for the links and quoted conclusions, naita; I appreciate it very much.