All About Eyes
There are many who impart mythical information about your eyes as you are a child, whether it’s your parents telling you to eat your carrots so you can see in the dark, or worrying playground rumour of how crossing your eyes too many times will make them stick, but are any of these myths true, or should they disregarded as with other childhood white lies?
Common Myths
Sitting Right In Front Of The TV Will Damage Your Eyes – Lazy weekends spent watching cartoons or playing video games as a child may have been punctuated by the sound of parents telling you to move away from the TV screen when glued to a favourite program. There is something about television which seems quite magical and fascinating as a child, so naturally they often wish to get as close to the action as possible.
While it should be noted that regular breaks from television watching is advised, larger screen TV’s now lessen the strain on the eye which avoids squinting, while it is clear that a child’s eyesight will likely be better than that of an aging parent, therefore better able to cope with focusing. The main reason to stand back from the TV these days would be that up close the picture can seem blurry and are best viewed standing back, while sitting very close to a TV or book can be an early sign of short-sightedness, so this piece of advice contains elements of truth and myth.
Eating Carrots Will Help You See in the Dark
While carrots are rich in vitamin A which certainly helps maintain healthy vision, it will not likely overly improve existing sight, while parents would do better to notify their children of a variety of healthy foods which can maintain good eye condition, including spinach, apricots and milk, while actually being able to truly ‘see’ in the dark is always an unlikely proposition, so this is largely a myth.
Reading in Bad Light Harms Sight
While it certainly helps to be able to see things more clearly, the only symptom of reading under poor light would be to experience tiredness as you strain to read the fine print in low level light, but long term damage is not likely. Pupils enlarge in an attempt to let in maximum light, but the lens cannot focus as it would in the light, much like how cameras function, so it’s more a question of our eyes not being adapted to function in the dark rather than any more hazardous consequences, so this is also mostly myth.
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