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Healthy vision: Kids say goodbye to thick lenses
A few months into the pandemic, Lee Lok Yin, 8, said his eyes began to feel constantly tired, to the point that he would sometimes get dizzy. It was only when his mother took him for an eye test at The CUHK Jockey Club Children’s Eye Care Programme that he realised he had become mildly short sighted. “During the pandemic, Lok Yin had all his classes in front of the computer. He had to focus on the screen for four to five hours every day,” Lok Yin’s mother said. “That must have taken a toll on his eyesight. Luckily, we found out about the problem early.”
Lok Yin’s case is far from uncommon. In fact, eyesight protection has become a critical health issue for children. Recently, The CUHK Jockey Club Children’s Eye Care Programme tracked 700 children across Hong Kong and found that the amount of time they spent on electronic devices during the pandemic increased to an average of 6.9 hours per day from 2.5 hours before. For some children, their myopia – or short-sightedness – had worsened by minus 1.00 dioptres in both eyes in a short period of time.