First-born children are 10% more likely to be short-sighted

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First-born children are also 20% more likely to be severely short sighted
Experts said parents push first-born children harder to do well at school
Parents invest less time in the education of younger siblings, they added
Spending time indoors, reading or looking at screens, damages eyes

By Ben Spencer, Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: 11:07 EST, 8 October 2015 | Updated: 14:57 EST, 8 October 2015

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First-born children are more likely to be short-sighted than their younger siblings, according to a study.

Experts say that first children are more likely to have been pushed to do well in school - with hours staring at books harming their eyes.

Scientists at Cardiff University analysed health records from 89,000 British people aged between 40 and 69.

First-born children are more likely to be short-sighted than their younger siblings, a study has found. Experts said parents push first-borns to do better at school, meaning they spend hours inside reading (file photo)

They found that those who were the first to be born in their family were 10 per cent more likely to suffer from short-sightedness, or myopia, than people who had an older sibling.

And they were 20 per cent more likely to suffer from severe myopia.

The research authors said that parents tend to spend more time overseeing their first child’s education, while subsequent children are given more freedom to play outside and less time staring at books.

This means older siblings tend to do better in exams – but their eyesight also suffers.

The scientists, led by Dr Jeremy Guggenheim of the Cardiff School of Optometry and Visual Sciences, wrote: ‘Children with an earlier birth order to relatively better at school owing to parents investing more time, effort and/or resources in educating children with an earlier birth order.’

They said this means they spend ‘more time doing near work, and less time spent outdoors’.

CHILDREN SHOULD PLAY OUTSIDE TO PROTECT THEIR EYESIGHT, EXPERTS SAY

Children should spend at least two hours a day playing outdoors to protect their sight, experts advised last night.

Parents should also limit the time they spend staring at mobile phones and electronic devices.

Emerging research suggests that people who spend more time indoors are at far greater risk of becoming short sighted.

Looking at computers and electronic screens worsens the effect, scientists think.

The impact is the worst in China, where 80 per cent of teenagers are now short sighted - a trend that experts say is because of high educational standards.

A report published by the Brien Holden Vision Institute in Australia last night predicts that the number of people globally with shorted-sightedness will increase from 2 billion today to 5 billion by 2050.

Of those, 1 billion could be at risk of blindness, they say.

Professor Kovin Naidoo, CEO of the institute, said parents and teachers should act now.

‘Parents should encourage their children to spend time outdoors for at least two hours each day,’ he said.

‘They should also ensure children don’t spend too much time on electronic devices, such as tablets, mobile phones, electronic games, television and other activities which requires them to focus close up for long periods.

‘Teachers and parents should ensure that children are screened for vision problems at regular intervals and can also be vigilant in detecting and acting on vision problems among children.’

Time spent indoors is known to be a risk factor for myopia, as is time spent looking at close objects - including books and computer screens.

The results suggested that this trend had been in existence for several decades, the scientists added.

Two in five people in Britain are short sighted.

Dr Jeremy Guggenheim and his team found that if they adjusted their results to take into account educational attainment, the link between birth order and short-sightedness fell by 25 per cent.

They wrote: ‘Greater educational exposure in earlier-born children may expose them to a more myopiagenic environment; for example, more time doing near work and less time spent outdoors.

‘Our findings that statistical adjustment for indices of educational exposure partially attenuated the magnitude of the association between birth order and myopia, and completely removed the evidence for a dose-response relationship, therefore support the idea that reduced parental investment in children’s education for offspring of later birth order contributed to the observed birth order vs myopia association.’

Short-sightedness, which causes distant objects to appear blurred while close objects are seen clearly, is much more prevalent today than it was in the past.

There is growing evidence that spending time indoors is a major risk factor for myopia, thought to be because artificial light compares poorly to natural sunlight.

Recent research found that just spending an extra 40 minutes a day in the sunshine has been shown to dramatically improve children’s sight.

In China, where four in every five teenagers is short-sighted, authorities are even testing transparent classrooms in a bid to increase children’s exposure to natural light.

Chinese scientists have reported a 23 per cent reduction of myopia in children who spend an extra 40 minutes each day outside in the sunshine.

A similar study at Ohio State University in the US tracked 500 school children from the age of eight.

After five years 20 per cent of the children were diagnosed with short sight - and the only environmental factor that linked them was the amount of time they spent outdoors.

The research was published in the journal JAMA Opthalmology.

Parents tend to invest less time in the education of younger children, meaning they are given more freedom to play outside and less time staring at books. Spending time outside can protect against myopia (file photo)