Did your kid get glasses post-pandemic? Study says myopia rates are soaring around the world – CBC

With ‘near time’ identified as a problem, parents urged to boosting outdoor time

Jan 06, 2025

ew research shows the rate of myopia among children and teens worldwide has tripled over the past three decades, with a particularly steep increase noted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

A paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, which reviewed 276 studies published to June 2023 from around the world, concluded that more than one in three of all children and teens are nearsighted, triple what it was in 1990.

“Emerging evidence suggests a potential association between the pandemic and accelerated vision deterioration among young adults,” states the report, published in September.

The authors forecast that if the current trends continue, about 740 million children and teens — more than half globally — will be myopic by 2050.

The paper estimates the current rate of myopia among children in Canada at roughly 25 per cent. That number is lower than the international average but it’s still a significant increase from the prevalence of 17.5 per cent, concluded by University of Waterloo researchers in a paper published in early 2018.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/myopia-children-shortsightedness-prevalence-outdoor-indoor-1.7399141