Study blamed for 90% shortsighted 17-year-olds

More than 90 percent of 17-year-olds in Jiangsu province suffer from shortsightedness, Xinhua reports citing an education department report.

The staggering number is at odds with most other areas of China where though about 50 percent of people in urban centers are shortsighted, that figure is far lower at 20 percent in rural areas, according to a report in the Lancet medical journal, which also sets myopia at between 20 and 40 percent in the US and Europe.

Slightly more 17-year-old males suffer the problem at 92.3 percent, with females of the same age 90.4 percent.

Across an age range of 7 to 22 in 2011, some 67.8 percent of students in Jiangsu province are shortsighted, 4.4 percent higher than the year before, according to physical fitness results released by the Education Department of Jiangsu province on Monday.

In addition, 46.4 percent of elementary school children are shortsighted, 3.7 percent higher than the year before.

"Prolonged close-up visual activities and a lack of outdoor activities will easily lead to myopia and make the situation worse," says Zhou Zhe, an ophthalmologist at Beijing Tongren Hospital,

A new study published this month in the Lancet medical journal argues the reason behind the growth of myopia is too much time spent inside poring over schoolbooks.

"Increasing educational pressures, combined with lifestyle changes…have reduced the time children spend outside," spurring higher levels of short-sightedness, the authors write. As a consequence, for the next 100 years, East Asia will face an adult population "at high risk of developing pathological myopia," a condition that can lead to serious sight loss.