teenage children Outdoor activity and myopia in Singapore

ABSTRACTAim: To investigate the relationship of outdoor activitiesand myopia in Singapore teenage children.Methods: Teenage children (1249 participants), exam-ined in the Singapore Cohort study Of Risk factors forMyopia (SCORM), during 2006 were included in analyses.Participants completed questionnaires that quantified totaloutdoor activity, and underwent an eye examination.Results: The mean total time spent on outdoor activitywas 3.24 h/day. The total outdoor activity (h/day) wassignificantly associated with myopia, odds ratio 0.90 (95%CI 0.84 to 0.96) (p=0.004), after adjusting for age,gender, ethnicity, school type, books read per week,height, parental myopia, parental education and intelli-gence quotient. In addition, the total time spent outdoorswas associated with significantly less myopic refraction(regression coefficient=0.17; CI 0.10 to 0.25, p,0.001)and shorter axial length (regression coefficient 20.06 (CI20.1 to 20.03, p,0.001). Total sports was alsosignificantly negatively associated with myopia(p=0.008) but not indoor sports (p=0.16).Conclusions: Participants who spent more time outdoorswere less likely to be myopic. Thus, outdoor activity mayprotect against development of myopia in children,supporting recent Australian data. As near work did notpredict outdoor activity, this can be viewed as anindependent factor and not merely the reciprocal of nearwork.In Western populations, myopia is found in one inthree individuals;