Why are children increasingly wearing glasses?

Some write-ups or reports stick in the mind in such a way that these become the synonymous with a topic, place or incident. Old memories are raked up in seconds. Just like the name Cairo doesn’t bring pyramids to my mind. It reminds me about the terrible plane crash on 20 May 1965. Pakistan Airlines was flamboyantly taking that inaugural flight to London.

It was supposed to travel from Karachi to London via Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, cairo in Egypt and then Geneva in Switzerland. There were eminent guests and journalists among the 114 passengers travelling in that inaugural flight. Since it was still a part of Pakistan back then, a few senior journalists from Bangladesh were also invited to that flight.

Miraculously, only six of the passengers from that flight were saved from that plane wreck. Many consider this a ‘mysterious’ plane accident because Chinese aircraft designer Huang Zhiqian was among the killed. He was the chief designer of fighter jet Shenyang J-8. On the next day, a detailed report was published in the weekly Purbodesh.

Observer, Morning News, Paigam, Ittefaq and other newspapers published photographs of the deceased persons’ grieving family members and photographs of them being sent off from Tejgaon airport. That report had such an impact on me that the verbal images of that accident occupied a higher place than the pyramids in my mind.

However, while boarding the Cairo-bound flight in the wee hours of 17 December, I was overwhelmed by a different report. The report was published in Prothom Alo on Friday, 20 May 2016 (coincidentally, both incidents occurred on 20 May. Only the year and the setting were different. But they both are equally horrifying). That report written by Sheikh Sabiha Alam had stated that our children meaning our future generation is fast moving towards blindness.

At Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, cheerful children were travelling to Cairo for the holidays with their well-to-do parents. The group of children included toddlers as well as children used to playing cricket. Out of the 305 passengers, there were 47 children of different age groups. Counting the seven toddlers out, 13 of the remaining 40 children had to wear glasses regularly. In terms of statistics, one of every three children from that group suffered from weak vision without glasses.

As the Egyptair flight was delayed, I got the leisure to chat with the children and their parents. Talking to the children it was found that apart from the 13 children wearing glasses full-time, there were quite a few children using glasses occasionally. There were ten more children who had glasses in their bags. Back in our time (60's) nobody had glasses at the primary school level. In the secondary school level, only two out of the 120 students from both sections of Class Six used to wear glasses. And the statistics remained the same till Class 10.

Once the Corona pandemic mitigated, discussions started about its impact on children in different countries. Some took up research. I believe a group of researchers from Dhaka’s Ispahani Islamia Eye Hospital had conducted a research of this sort in 2021.

They tested the vision of 6,401 students from 19 schools in Dhaka, under the study. Outside of Dhaka, the vision of 26,347 more children from different schools in Barishal, Jamalpur and Naogaon were tested as well. The survey conducted in Dhaka found impaired vision in 40 per cent of the students while the figure was 14 per cent outside of Dhaka.

Researchers say that keeping eyes on digital screens for long periods have resulted in this condition. During the pandemic, education had become reliant on laptops, tablets and cellphones. That has had an impact on the vision. This information or conclusion isn’t anything new.

The report of Sheikh Sabiha Alam published in 2016, way before the Covid outbreak, also stated the same thing (children were shortsighted without glasses because of their habit of longer screen-time). I’m not saying that looking at a laptop, tablet or cellphone screens day and night doesn’t affect the eyes. Of course it does. However, that’s not the only reason behind reduced eyesight in children.   

According to American ‘National Health Service’, deficiency of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals in the body results in various physical conditions.  Experts say that the lack of Vitamin A and B12 can shrink the vision. As per World Health Organization (WHO), especially the corneas can dry up if there’s not adequate amount of Vitamin A.

This increases the risk of blindness. If this isn’t treated in time, the risk gets doubled. Around 2.5 million (25 lakh) children and adults throughout the world suffer from the lack of Vitamin A. The same way, deficit of Vitamin B12 is also a major cause of vision reduction.

Almost all of the parents and guardians of the Cairo-bound flight’s children passengers were highly educated and well-off. It’s unlikely for them to have a lack of money.  Does that mean even if they are eating expensive foods, those do not contain enough vitamins and nutrients? Everyone knows the answer to this question. The ability to afford nutritious food isn’t a concern here the concern is the excessive addiction to so called fast foods.

Besides, various chemicals that are added to the fast foods also contain different ingredients such as sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate and monosodium glutamate to increase the addiction. And it’s nothing strange for phthalates to be present in the food due to contamination from the packaging of the fast food. Long lasting exposure to these chemicals can be harmful to health.

Those working on addiction towards unhealthy yet costly foods among children and adults have explained the concept of increasing addiction as, “a mouth-watering cheese hamburger with a bag of hot and crispy fries alongside a supersized soda, the way fast foods are created in flawless combo design that makes the customers return for more again and again. The combination of fat, carbohydrate and sodium keeps the consumer charmed. It captivates them in such a way that it’s not different from alcohol or drug addiction.” 

Children often find a tiny fast food shop without even looking at the signboard. It’s the smell that keeps them fascinated. Who will bring such fast food-addicted children back to nutritious food like fish, lentils and vegetables?

According to the local health bulletin of the directorate general of health services (DGHS), more than 200,000 (2 lakh) patients receive treatment at National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital per year.  

Since, school, outdoor visits and sports were stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic children’s addiction of device has increased a lot. Their use of device for gaming, attending online classes and for everything else has increased as well. As a result, various eyesight problems starting from ‘dry eye’ to decreasing retina efficiency and increase of minus power are on the rise among children.

As per WHO’s situation analysis of vision-2020 conducted in south-east Asia, 1.5 per cent of adults in Bangladesh are blind while 21.6 per cent are with low vision. Besides, 1.5 million (15 lakh) children are suffering from various eye problems. The number of children suffering to see things from afar is rising every day. This is called nearsightedness, shortsightedness or myopia and it’s one of the four major eye problems.

Actually, this is the eye condition where the pupil or the light coming through the pupil instead of falling on the retina, focuses on a point in front of it and creates a reflection. And that’s what creates the confusion.

American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) had formed a taskforce in 2019 to announce myopia as an urgent global health problem. According to Michael Repka, a professor at Johns Hopkins University of Ophthalmology and the medical director for governmental affairs at AAO, “It is such a problem that will lead us to a pandemic of blindness a few decades later.”

At the beginning of 21st century, 42 per cent people aged between 12 to 54 years in the United States were diagnosed with myopia. But, the ratio was around 25 per cent back in the 70s. Though there hasn’t been any large-scale survey in recent times, the ophthalmologists in the United States agree that the number of children suffering from myopia is now higher than ever.

According to the ophthalmology research institute of Dhaka, daily 3,000 patients receive treatment there. On average, 50 per cent of the patients are children diagnosed with vision problems. Experts say that about 14.3 million (1.43 crore) people from the total population of the country suffer from problems of vision impairments.

There’s no national level research on exactly how many children are suffering from such condition across the country. Physicians at the National Institute of Ophthalmology say that 70 per cent of the children visiting them cannot see distant objects well. The number of children with vision impairment is increasing day by day.

First of all, children have to be diverted from fast foods.  

The advices notable ophthalmologist Maksude Mowla has suggested for following in these cases are-

1. Children should play or move in an open space outside of the house for at least an hour every day.

2. Screen time for using devices such as cellphones and laptops has to be reduced.

3. To slow the growth of myopia, ophthalmologists sometimes advice on applying Atropine 0.01 per cent in the eyes.

4. If glasses are required, using glasses with the right power.

Outdoor movement and sports is the most crucial of these four advices.

Comparative studies between two educational institutes in the United States have shown that the school that allowed one hour of recess for playing outside posed 50 per cent lesser risk of myopia in children. Many such researches have also been conducted in the educational institutes of China. The same way, compared to city children rural school students have even less than 50 per cent vision related problems.

That’s why numerous countries have made it compulsory to move and play outdoors for one to two hours during school. Our neighbouring countries are also trying to launch this system. Give your child an hour to play outside in the daylight every day. Get them admitted to educational institutions where there is a field. Raise your voice so that an hour of recess is allowed in schools.

Myopia is not only a problem concerning the glasses, but also an origin of serious vision damages including blindness caused from retinal detachment. So we must think about children’s vision and try to keep their eyesight normal. In fact, it’s possible to save a child for much less than the cost of spectacle frames.

* Gawher Nayeem Wahra is a researcher and can be contacted at nayeem5508@gmail.com

* This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Nourin Ahmed Monisha