Caution is better than short-sightedness!
Although the study situation is not yet 100 per cent clear, the trend is quite clear: there are more and more short-sighted children.
Why is that? It most likely has to do with the fact that children no longer spend as much time outside and therefore the time spent looking into the distance is decreasing. Instead, children spend too much time indoors, use media for too long and look at their smartphones too much. It is assumed that this promotes short-sightedness.
The smartphone again ... it just keeps popping up in our videos and factsheets. And indeed, one of the major tasks of the current generation of parents is to maintain a healthy level of media and smartphone use - and above all to make sure that the children go outside!
The recommendation for preventing short-sightedness is to spend at least 80 to 120 minutes outside per day.
Once again, there is still no conclusive evidence on the subject. But there are clear trends that make it worthwhile to avoid this risk. "Better safe than sorry" or "Caution is better than short-sightedness".
Further interesting tips
Paediatric myths
Have you ever heard these phrases or said them yourself? "The child has such yellow snot, it's probably something bacterial!" "The urine smells so bad, it's probably a urinary tract infection!" "The child is coughing so badly, it must be pneumonia!" You hear all these sentences over and over again and they are all, you guessed it, rubbish.
Constraints
Where does compulsive behaviour begin - what are normal rituals? Doc spoke about this with Frank Köhnlein, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Here are the most important points from the conversation.
Phubbing
From what, please? Phubbing. A word that would be best if it didn't exist. It's a contraction of the two English words "phone" and "snubbing", which means to snub or offend. And it describes the moment when an interaction or communication is interrupted by reaching for a smartphone or other digital media.