Yeah, I hadn’t heard about this ”daylight” thing either. I’ve been nearsighted since I was a kid, and back then people said I got it because I read to much, focusing on things too close to my face. I thought that was a pretty fair trade-off, since I liked reading, and didn’t particularly mind wearing glasses.

This sunlight thing makes a lot of sense though. I kept hearing proposals during the pandemic about holding classes outside if the weather allowed for it. Might not be such a terrible idea in climates where it’s suitable.

My daughter’s primary school teacher recently got a “beach teaching” qualification and she now has one school day a week on the beach, rain or shine. I was really pleased about that anyway as the school doesn’t have a lot of outdoor space for the kids to run around, but this gives me even more reason to be happy.

I scoffed at first, but I guess the qualification is about water safety and things, just in case?

I know what you mean - I also had a bit of a similar reaction at first - but as I understand it's how to run lessons on a beach without classroom teaching materials to hand, how to use things on the beach in the context of certain subjects etc. Also, I said "qualification" which probably makes it sound grander than it is - she just went on a 3 or 4 day course.

You should've stopped at the scoff. Someone qualified to handle children in a classroom and in field trips is already qualified to take them to a beach.

I think you may be misunderstanding, which is perhaps understandable given that I didn't unpack what it meant - see my sibling comment. But scoffing without asking for more information isn't a great strategy for learning.

> But scoffing without asking for more information isn't a great strategy for learning.

See the dart game scene from Ted Lasso:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ4YSXv6Xkg

I grew up in a beach town and gone to the beach in kindergarten all the time with the school without any special certifications. In the event kids go into the water there's always a lifeguard on duty already so otherwise it's the same as any other school outing, I'm not sure what the difference would be from leading a group of children in a city walk for example which to me looks way more dangerous.

Making kids go to the beach in the rain isn't a great strategy either.

Rain is a good thing

I was told reading was my problem too...except I was only nearsighted in one eye. My right eye couldn't focus clearly past the length of my arm, but my left one had no trouble at all. For years, I wore a plain lens for the left eye, and when I was old enough, switched to wearing only one contact lens.

They confirmed it wasn't that I was reading only with my right eye, and it's obviously not like my eyes got different amounts of sunlight, given that they go everywhere together, so I've always been suspicious that that was a lazy answer.

> I was told reading was my problem too...except I was only nearsighted in one eye.

I got glasses before kindergarten, and I needed them for longer than that.

Later on, I did end up spending a lot of time in childhood reading, but I was myopic before I could read.

‘Explanations’ like ‘you read too much’ have always struck me as obvious nonsense in my case.

Interestingly, reading is usually done indoors.

Yes; among other reasons, sunlight reflecting off the white pages of a book is bright enough to injure your eyes.

The basic Kindle model is grey and can be comfortably read in sunlight, and yet somehow people are convinced that the "PaperWhite" model is better...

What ever the name says, it isn't paper white. Actually, I think there is little difference, the difference is the light, which makes the PaperWhite look whiter in normal light and enables reading in dim conditions.

Perhaps some people read significantly more indoors or shade than direct sunlight

The grey background doesn't make it any harder to read. It's just less bright.

The Paperwhite is called that because it has background lighting via weak LEDs.

I can’t find the article atm, but read about a school who is trying that out right now, I think they started in the pandemic.

If this was the case people living far north should be in a really bad spot for nearsightness.

Maybe it is that if pupils are outside they focus far away when looking up, rather than sun light?

I think (weakly) the nearsightedness issue is indeed from not exercising focusing rather than sunlight.

But apparently there is an issue where mothers with low vitamin D in Scandinavia (especially immigrants from sunnier places) are more likely to have autistic children.

Anecdote, I started fidgeting by varying eye focus and depth - can't get forced to sit still if your fidgeting is barely perceptible - at a very young age and have the best range of accomodation of anyone I know. Can also easily perceive chromatic aberration/my eyes needing a different focus setting for different wavelengths.

I'd love to know if some sort of focus training exercises for eyes starting as children would help everyone.

Or maybe the effect takes years of sustained lack of light to work, and northern summers compensate?

>>Making young kids study all the time is killing their eyesight! reply

I very much doubt kids 'studying too much' is the problem - staring at iphones all day watching tiktok and playing video games is more like it.

I’m thinking it’s the heavy metal that the rapscallions these days are hipping and hopping to.

The reality is near-sightedness is a massive problem in countries with insane childhood studying hours, eg all across east Asia.

I bet not long before that the old folks were complaining about the kids watching too much TV, reading too many comics, or playing too much backgammon.

That doesn't certainly help, but there was already a disproportionate army of myopic asian (mostly chinese IIRC) kids that were spending their entire young lives burried in books, way before modern world glued their eyesight to those tiny crappy screens.

Now wonder if Chinese children must spend more time buried in books because their writing system is more time-demanding to learn (~4000 logograms vs. a few dozens letters in languages with alphabetic writing systems).

> I very much doubt kids 'studying too much' is the problem - staring at iphones all day watching tiktok and playing video games is more like it.

Civilizational myopia is not a new phenomenon. It is much older than iphones or video games.

Staring at a book or a chess set has the exact same effect.

If we manage to have a kid, long walks everyday are planned :) More movement, less screen time is always good for health, parents' and kids' alike.

Also, getting used to all sorts of weather improves the immune system. By spending too much time indoors we are becoming glasshouse flowers.

Everyone thinks this, until they pop out a second one and there is no time or energy to do anything outside work, cook, clean, and all the baby/toddler tasks.

Huh? Walks outside with the toddler are the best. Stick him in either the stroller or bike seat and it’s the only time they sit still.

Guess it’s a bit hard to combine with a baby <6 months, but eventually they should both fit.

It is rough if both parents are working. Lining up all the schedules and breastfeeding and whatnot is harder than it sounds, especially in northern (and southern) areas with less daylight hours. Just cooking and feeding and cleaning up after a picky toddler and baby learning how to eat can kill an evening. And then at least one is bound to be sick every other week if they are in day care…the list goes on for why plans have a low tendency to work out. See also mattlondon’s comment.

It has been pretty easy on our end. We live walking distance to work and daycare.

so it’s no problem to even have both of us pick the kids up, walk home to eat lunch, walk kids back to daycare, and go back to work.

You can pick your kids up in the middle of the day and then bring them back after?

I can pick them up any time I want, but after that they have to stay home :P

In some countries, eg France, it’s common for kids to go home for lunch and then come back.

Good luck with the plan :)

Under the age of about 1 to 1.5 then you get to call the shots of what happens when. Walk as mu h as you like.

After that age, the kids start to get their own opinions and won't always just do what you want them to do. You may want to go for a long walk, but the kid wants to do something else. They'll spend 95% of the time trying to escape the buggy/stroller or trying to run off or just sit on the floor if they're walking.

At that age we've found that it is best to not have any plans for things you need to do - e.g. don't plan to "walk to the store", because it might take you 25 minutes to go about 200 meters because you need to stop to look at a traffic light or a store front or a car that is red or whatever - i.e. you'll never get to the store without a fight. That said, they usually love the playground though so swings and slides and stuff can replace being a docile lump that you cart around.

It is not necessary that bad. I had some fights with kids at that age, but it definitely was not every single time we walked. You are exaggerating how bad it is.

What you do is normal at that age. If you walk to store frequently it is normal routine and lead to fights only occasionally. And while kid stops to look at boring things, it is not like they would stop for hours, most of time you nudge them after few seconds and they go.

It is slower then adult speed, but not that impossibly slow.

> I had some fights with kids at that age, but it definitely was not every single time we walked. You are exaggerating how bad it is.

Every child is unique. Some are more stubborn than others. This is a challenge with any parenting advice because there is so much variance. My experience is my kids do fight or linger every time despite the routine and nudges.

Sure. But the whole "heh your plan to have daily walks with kids is impossible" is just not true. Families with kids walk to places.

Plus, there are millions of single parents around the world who don't have cars and walk+public transport their kids to daycare daily.

I'm not saying a daily walk is impossible. Rather some will find it easier than others. Still, with two working parents and car focused city planning it can be very challenging to do seemingly trivial things.

Yes, when my oldest was 1 1/2, I took him on a lot of short walks where I had no particular destination in mind. It was great for teaching him sidewalk safety and for giving him freedom to practice whatever gross motor skills he was working on, like climbing up and down steps without holding on to stuff.

Unfortunately I didn't do nearly as much of this kind of walk with his little brother, because it's not safe if your attention is divided between multiple kids.

https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/freedom-wit...

It very much depends on the relationship you have with your kids. Respect and trust are really important.

However beyond that IMHO frankly it's critical safety imperative that children do what their parents tell them when it matters. If you're in the street near traffic a child disregarding parental instructions is a life and death issue. There are other safety critical situations too. This is why I feel it's vital that children and parents have a relationship of trust and respect, in both directions, that allows for that. It's not easy, I know.

Your kids can trust and respect you, but they still get curious and still get bored. They won't always want to do what you want them to do, especially when they are toddlers.

You need to let kids be kids (while being safe which I obviously agree with)

With respect to building respect and trust with young kids, this video might be useful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvm1J9HVLo

Dr. Paul Jenkins is great!

Kids are crazy. One second they'll be yelling in your face about how completely different from you they are, then the next minute they're repeating you verbatim to a friend.

You can absolutely get a kid excited about a long walk. It sounds like in your case your kid was enjoying it more than you were ;)

> By spending too much time indoors we are becoming glasshouse flowers.

Efficiency vs anti-fragility. Pick one, but not both.

I love that you used anti-fragility correctly! =)

I spent all my childhood outside and still near-sighted.

I spent all my childhood (and continuing into adulthood) staring at a computer screen and I've 20/20 vision.

Same and I am very near-sighted.

One person's anecdote does not qualify or disqualify a concept.

Never said that it disqualifies a concept. Just stating that there might be something else, give my anecdote. And given amount of upvotes on my comment, I'm not the only one.

My friend has never had a vaccine and brags he's never gotten measles...

Anecdata, but I lived in a low light environment for most of my life (North UK), then spend the last ~15 years in a much brighter environment (NZ). My prescription has dropped from a mid -5 to a low -4 in that time, which is a fairly large and uncommon improvement for someone middle aged. The optician put it down to where I've been living.

Decreased myopia is very common in middle-aged people. Mine went from -2 to 0 in my 40s. I did not move to New Zealand.

I know that it's common to stabilize in middle age once you stop growing, but can't find any info about it being common to reverse. Regardless, congratulations! That's a great outcome.

As I understand it, the reversion to normal vision is not caused by changing length of the eye (as you say, nobody is growing in their 40s) but rather by a degeneration of the refractive power of the materials in the eye.

It'd be interesting if someone could try and relate this statistic to the typical solar index for an area - https://globalsolaratlas.info/map

I thought it would have been to do with the consumption of starches and carbs https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/sep/21/shoppin...

In earlier years, this was correlated with highly giftedness, because IQ kids used to suck in more information which means reading a lot: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19127804/ ;)

"nerds wear glasses, study finds"

Yep... focusing (as in, your eyes keeping focus) on a thing that's at a fixed distance infront of you for extended periods of time seems to be very bad for your eyesight... "back in my times", the parents used to blame stuff like this on screens (tv back then), but books do the same thing. Basically all the workplace safety trainings here include the "stare at something in the distance every now and then", so you focus on something else, not just the screen <1m away from your face.

I thought this was relatively well known.

I sometimes wonder if UV protective glasses block some possible benefit of UV light to eyes.

I have often wondered this myself, but the dangers of UV light seem to be well documented, with no benefits.

If you wear UV protective glasses most of the time you can almost elimate cataracts.

The UV index here in southern Australia tends to be high to extreme most days during the warmer months, so I tend to wear UV protective sun glasses anytime I'm outside.

I'm not sure there are any known benefits that outweigh the costs of UV exposure.

That said, there is emerging research that the lack of NIR light is very detrimental to all kinds of health conditions[0].

Over the past two years, I've moved to ensuring that I get plenty of indirect sunlight. As NIR can go through most clothing and foliage produced shade, it's quite pleasant and relaxing to spend time in it.

I also have large concerns with the move to thermal insulation efficiency that we now have. Indoor Air and quite easily become stagnant due to lack of outdoor exchange and the the low-emissivity glass used in high end windows block most NIR. Couple that with a lack of NIR emitters (incandescent is gone, camp fires are gone), and I think we are in for a world of hurt, even more so than today.

Indoor Air quality can be mostly solved with use of ERVs to cycle the air with minimal energy loss.

I'm not sure how you solve for low-emissivity glass other than not using it and designing your structure to limit direct sunlight exposure for the window itself and use shade/curtains/blinds for thermal control when needed.

0: https://doi.org/10.32794/mr11250016

> It is abnormal for humans to need glasses. It's also abnormal for humans to need braces and to need their wisdom teeth surgically removed.

It's not. Just because there wasn't a documented cases of weakly sighted people doesn't mean that they didn't exist. Or do you seriously believe all prehistoric humans had 20/20 eyesight?

And unless your teeth are crooked line vines you probably don't need braces from medical standpoint. Unless it causes issues to your jaw. Same with wisdom teeth.

> The list of maladies caused by modern diet and lifestyle is infinite and unknowable.

What exactly in modern diet and lifestyle causes issues that you've listed?

Soft foods cause crooked teeth. Ancestral humans ate raw tubers and other very chewy things that exercised their jaws, and the growing human body needs this resistance/exercise. If you look at modern hunter-gatherer tribes with traditional diets, they have a far lower rate of crooked teeth we'd solve with braces than the developed world.

Sterile environments/too-low pathogenic load causes allergies. The immune system expects a base-rate of infection; if it doesn't see that, it upregulates. Allergies are a first-world disease; they're far less prevalent in less developed countries, and you even see the effect in immigrants- their allergy rates go up after a few years of living in a developed country.

> Or do you seriously believe all prehistoric humans had 20/20 eyesight?

The prehistoric realities were harsh and nearsighted individuals had little chances of survival and procreation (natural selection). In the modern society perfect eye-sight is not as important for survival as in the prehistoric society, thus more tolerance to its greater variability.

Sunlight exposure has been shown to be protective of eyesight, and we spend more time indoors focusing on screens.

The timespan is too short for evolution to have had a considerable impact.

> The timespan is too short for evolution to have had a considerable impact.

I am not talking about evolution as in developing new species but about survivability of naturally occurring variations. Modern humanity timespan is not enough in developing new genetic traits but long enough to alter effects of natural selection. BTW, due to advances in medicine nowadays we have children born and survive into adulthood with medical conditions that were terminal just 100 years ago. Survival variability (in developed world) is much broader that it was in recent historic past (e.g. middle-ages). This is a plain fact.

But the timeline is too short even for that. The number of children who survive today, despite genetic issues, who would not have survived 100 years ago, is miniscule compared to the extent of nearsightedness today.

Wisdom teeth used to just be a problem that either killed you, or you lived with lots of pain from, or you paid a guy to try and do something about them.

I don't know why people are so big on "we used to not need X in the distant past" tropes: yes we did, but we also just let lots of people die from it, or live a life of agony or being shunned as ugly/unclean/unable.

Crooked teeth really didn't exist in the farther out past. If you look at the jawbones of Neolithic people, they all have perfectly aligned teeth.

The theory is that we're not chewing hard enough food, which leads to insufficient jawbone growth as a kid, leading to not enough space for your teeth.

I guess I should thank my mom and her well-done steaks for my decent jaw and relative lack of dental issues.

If they killed that many people, how did they escape natural selection?

If it happens after the person has a chance to raise offspring to a sufficient survival age, then it would not adversely affect natural selection.

They didn’t kill you. You needed them, after your second teeth - what we call your ‘adult teeth’ - had rotten and fallen out.

Killed<>eradicated.

Only Americans are afraid of wisdom teeth. 90 percent of the rest of the world keep them with no problems whatsoever.

(Something something medical cartel...)

Where you got that from? They are surgically removed outside of USA regularly when they grow bad and cause infections.

> when they grow bad

Yes, exactly. Which actually happens not so often and usually around the time the rest of your teeth go bad and you start to need surgery anyways.

I think the difference is the US is very likely to remove them preemptively.