Should a child remove their glasses (they are nearsighted) when reading to avoid straining their eyes more than necessary?
AUG 04, 2017
Question:
My child's eye doctor said that nearsighted children should remove their glasses when reading to avoid straining their eyes more than necessary. I have been unable to find more information about this. Is this true?
Answer:
Some experts believe that active focusing at near is one of the causes of nearsightedness getting worse, so they recommend taking them off so that a nearsighted child no longer has to actively focus. There are no definitive data proving this hypothesis. The second reason may be that a few children may get some eye strain symptoms when working at near for long periods of time in their nearsighted glasses. While this sounds intuitively correct, few data are available to suggest how often this actually occurs.