Eye expert urges children to head outdoors

An ophthalmologist has urged parents to encourage their children play outdoors – citing a poor vision ‘epidemic’.

Dr Steve Schallhorn, a leading refractive surgeon and chief medical director of Optical Express, said there was increasing evidence that growing use of multi-screen technology placed vision under serious strain.

He was referring to research published by Ulster University in April 2015 showing 23 per cent of British 12 and 13-year-olds were diagnosed with myopia compared with around 10 per cent in the 1960s.

He said: ‘I believe that we are creating an epidemic of short sightedness which recent studies show is down to the regular use of hand-held devices such as smartphones and tablets.