Kids who play outside become less nearsighted

With today's youth spending more and more time on digital devices and computers, many of them are spending less time outdoors. A new study suggests that spending more time outdoors helps to slow down the onset of myopia (nearsightedness). The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and it finds that nearly 40 percent of 6-year-old children who did not spend more time outside became nearsighted. Only 30% of children in another group who spent 40 additional minutes outside every day became nearsighted. The outside group also had less severe nearsighedness than those who did not spend time outside. So encouraging children to spend more time outside not only provides good physical exercise but can also lessen the likelihood of developing myopia.