Half of Chinese people likely to be near-sighted by 2020

According to a study by Peking University, half of China's population will have myopia by 2020, and 70 million of them will have medium or high degrees of myopia.

As Tuesday marks Eye Care Day in China, doctors are trying to encourage young people to spend more time outside to help protect their eyesight.

The Shanxi Eye Hospital in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province, is one of the country's top eye hospitals. It has seen a growing number of teenagers with myopia.

Many eye hospitals have seen a growing number of teenagers with myopia.

Jia Ding, chief ophthalmologist of the Optical Department at Shanxi Eye Hospital, said the hospital used to have about six hundred patients a day. Now they sometimes have a thousand a day, and over 80 percent of the patients are young students. She also said the number of young children with myopia continues to grow.

Doctors say the number of young children with myopia continues to grow.

A parent at the hospital said his daughter is only eight years old, but her myopia is already over 200 degrees, and he feels quite concerned that her daughter’s myopia will be even worse in the future.

Doctors blame academic pressure and the use of electronic devices

Jia pointed out that besides increasing academic pressure, many children also frequently use computers and cell phones now. Many schools even make students use tablet computers in classes. She emphasized that rays from these electronic devices are very bad for the eyes.

Tablet computers have become a must in many school classes.

Myopia is irreversible, but medical research suggests that sufficient outdoor activities every day can help prevent it.

Sufficient outdoor activities every day can help prevent myopia.

Yang Caizhen, the office director in Shanxi Eye Hospital, said that on this year's National Eye-care Day, they're advocating that children should be encouraged to go into nature, because outdoor activities and natural sunlight are very good for eyesight.

But growing academic pressure in Chinese schools has long made outdoor activities a luxury for many students. The government has called for more daily outdoor activities for students to prevent myopia. Hopefully, that will help reduce the number of young people who have to wear glasses.

(CGTN)