Blog
Does too much TV really make our eyes square? Some of our favourite myths…
Dec
- Wearing reading glasses will make your eyes weaker
As we hit our late 30s and early 40s it’s likely we’ll need a bit of help to see up close. As our eyes age our lenses cannot bend sufficiently to focus light from closer objects, making reading without glasses difficult. I’m afraid this condition progresses whether we like it or not, and although some people see a correlation with them starting to wear reading glasses and their eyes worsening, the truth is this deterioration will happen either way, whether you wear glasses or not.
- Carrots allow you to see in the dark
Due to the distribution of our rod and cone cells in the retina our night vision is limited. Sure, carrots have plenty of vitamin A, which along with vitamins C and E and micronutrients like Lutein contribute to good eye health. However, our central vision is made up mostly of cones, which are geared for detailed colour vision and don’t function particularly well in low light. We’d suggest a diet including plenty of vegetables such as kale, spinach and peppers, as well as omega-3 rich foods like oily fish.
- Doing eye exercises can correct your close vision
Presbyopia, the condition causing difficulty focusing up close, occurs with the aging of the eye and cannot be fixed using eye exercises. When we’re young our crystalline lens can bend to become more convex and therefore alter it’s refractive power to focus light from objects nearby. As we age our lens loses it’s elasticity and we need corrective spectacle or contact lenses to do the job our lens used to.
- 20/20 vision is perfect vision
So 20/20 vision is good, but it’s usually just a minimum quality that optometrists aim for when correcting your vision. In the UK we call it 6/6, as the line we try to see is 6 on the snellen chart (our standard sight test chart) and the test chart is 6 metres away. 20/20 is an Americanism as they use imperial measurements and not the metric system.
- Eyes remain the same size from birth
This is a common misconception, as babies appear to have larger eyes compared to their head, which is kind of what makes them so cute right? In actual fact our eyes start at around 18mm at birth, growing to about 24-25mm as an adult
And in case you hadn’t guessed it…you don’t get square eyes from too much TV!
