Too Much Sun Bad For Kids' Eyes
Being sun safe is critical for children – it’s a known fact that too much sun exposure in childhood can lead to skin cancer in later years.Now statistics show that up to 80% of lifetime UV exposure can occur before 18, damaging eyes as well as skin, according to figures from the Carneigie Science Centre. Too many people fail to take action to protect their children’s eyesight now, and so completely avoidable eye damage can occur in adult life, but by this stage it is too late. Sunglasses are now recommended as standard sun protection for children by leading Cancer research and prevention bodies around the world.
Our eyesight is precious – but few parents know that letting their children wear toy sunglasses or no sunglasses can have a devastating impact on their sight in later life. According to the World Health Organisation kids deserve special protection because “Children have more time to develop diseases with long latency, more years of life to be lost and more suffering to be endured as a result of impaired health. Increased life expectancy further adds to people's risk of developing skin cancers and cataracts.”
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Despite this, an independent consumer research study conducted for Polaroid Eyewear revealed that one in four parents do not even buy sunglasses for their children aged 12 and under and those parents that do buy kids sunglasses spend far less on sunglasses for their kids than they do on their own sunglasses. Compared to the amount parents are prepared to spend on themselves, they only consider paying just around a third of that price for their children’s sunglasses - despite the added importance of protecting kids’ eyes. So often parents are buying poor quality sunglasses.
Children’s eyes are particularly vulnerable because the pupils are proportionally bigger and the cornea, lens and fluid inside the eye are all clearer. This means more sunlight can penetrate through the eye and resulting eye damage as an adult can include cancer of the eyelid, also pteryigium which causes white cell growth over the cornea, cataracts and age-related macula degeneration which leads to blindness if untreated. Children also love to play outdoors, exposing them to a greater risk of UV damage than adults. Yet children are not usually aware of the harmful effects of UV. No sunglasses or the wrong sunglasses can put children’s adult sight at serious risk
The Cancer Council of Australia, where the intensity of the sun is very high, is so concerned about increased levels of eye cancer caused by sun exposure in Australia, they are recommending that school children should wear sunglasses whenever exposed to sunlight by being outside.
Five Tips For Buying Kids’ Sunglasses
 toy sunglasses can be dangerous – they afford often no UV protection and no shatter protection if broken
dark lenses don’t always offer full UV protection – they must be certified for International UV standards
dark lenses without proper UV filters make pupils dilate – so without proper UV filters they let in more potentially harmful UV light to a child’s eyes
look for a good fit – they’ll get worn for longer if they are comfortable
get a fashionable frame your kids actually like – again they won’t wear them if they don’t look good
May 2008
The Techie Stuff
Daylight travels in waves oscillating in all directions of three-dimensional space. Polarized light also travels, but mostly moves in two dimensions: horizontally and vertically. Vertical light brings useful information to the human eye, enabling us to see colours and contrasts, while horizontal light simply creates optical noise or glare. Where light strikes a non-metallic surface such as water it often reflects primarily in a horizontal plane. This creates a high concentration of glare which can be selectively blocked only by a good quality polarizing filter. Polarizing lenses selectively filter out the horizontal light, thus eliminating glare. Wearing Polaroid sunglasses means:
Glare-free vision
Clear contrasts
Natural colours
Reduced eye fatigue
100% UV protection
The Australian Cancer Council uses only Polaroid polarized lenses for their recommended SunSmart sunglass range because they afford the highest international standards of UVA, UVB and UVC protection. Polaroid polarized lenses also block out irritating glare to ensure that children do not have to squint and strain their eyes helping them avoid eye fatigue and headaches.
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