Healthy Eyes = Healthy Children

By Mescheca C. Bunyon, OD

Special Eye Care

. https://www.specialeyecare.net/

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Healthy Eyes = Healthy Children

Making sure that your children get routine eye exams every year may help them to do better in school. The Vision Council of America states that 80% of learning in a childs first 12 years of life comes from vision and that one in four children has undetected vision problems that can ultimately interfere with learning.
Children with undetected vision problems can manifest as having difficulty with reading and writing, recognition of letters and numbers, headaches, double vision, and may experience low self-esteem. Parents and teachers may even notice redness and tearing of the eyes after reading and writing.
Aside from having your childrens eyes examined annually to detect vision problems, they should also be wearing protective eyewear. Kids are outdoors much more than adults and have three times as much sun exposure. Therefore kids need to wear UV blocking glasses in the form of sunglasses or prescription glasses with photochromic lenses. Photochromic lenses like Transitions are lenses that change as soon as you go outdoors and adjust to the varying degrees of sunlight.
Kids are more active physically and are thus at higher risk for eye injuries. Over 40,000 sports related injuries occur every year and one third are children between the ages of 5-14. Most of these injuries are preventable. For this reason, your eye care provider should recommend polycarbonate lenses for anyone under the age of 18, which helps to reduce the risk of eye injuries to your children.
Vision screenings performed at schools and at the pediatricians office is not a substitute for a comprehensive eye examination by an eyecare professional. Preventive screenings only detect about 5% of vision problems but problems with near vision, focusing ability, and eye muscle problems may be detected better with routine eye exams.
Optometrists are committed to providing quality eye care for your children. We care about their healthy sight and want them to have quality vision and healthy eyes for a lifetime; after all healthy eyes equals healthy children.