Myopia isn't mostly in our genes. In two generations it went from a minority condition to the default in parts of East Asia, and by 2050 it's projected to cover half the planet. The best-tested fix so far is plain daylight.
49.8% of humanity, up from 22.9% in 2000, and 938 million of them highly myopic. — Holden et al., Ophthalmology, 2016 (projection)
Global myopia, measured to 2010 and projected after that. The count more than triples across fifty years.
Solid = estimates from published surveys; dashed = model projection (2050 uncertainty interval 3.62–6.06 bn). Source: Holden et al. 2016.
Myopia is measured in negative dioptres. Glasses fix the blur, but they don't fix the stretched eyeball underneath, and the odds of sight-threatening disease climb steeply with each step.
Big numbers = odds of myopic maculopathy vs. emmetropia. Odds ratios compiled by Flitcroft (2012) from population studies (Vongphanit 2002; Ogawa & Tanaka 1988; Chang 2005).
Share of young people who are myopic. The East Asian figures are higher than any gene pool could produce on its own.
Ranges: dark = low end, light = high end. Populations and ages differ, so compare orders of magnitude, not decimals. Sources: Jung et al. 2012; Community Eye Health Journal 2019; Lin et al. 2004; Vitale et al. 2009.
The same populations, surveyed a generation apart. Genes don't change in 17 or 30 years. Childhoods do.
Same 0–100% vertical scale in both panels. Sources: Lin et al. 2004 (Taiwan); Vitale, Sperduto & Ferris 2009 (US). A 2025 reappraisal questions parts of the US age pattern but not the overall rise.
Most myopia is fixed with a cheap pair of glasses. But millions of people never get them, and the most extreme cases can end in blindness.
Potential productivity lost in one year (2015) to vision impairment from uncorrected myopia, plus $6 bn from myopic macular degeneration.
People projected to be highly myopic (−5.00 D or worse) by 2050, about 1 in 10 people and more than triple 2010's 277 m.
Odds of myopic maculopathy at −8 D versus a normal eye. It's a leading cause of irreversible vision loss in East Asia.
In Guangzhou, six schools added one 40-minute outdoor class per day for three years. Six schools kept their usual timetable.
Bars on a 0–50% scale. Children aged ~6–7 who became myopic over 3 years. He et al., JAMA 2015.
The leading hypothesis is that bright outdoor light (often 10–100× brighter than a classroom) triggers retinal dopamine release, which slows the eyeball's growth. Close-up work alone doesn't explain the epidemic. The time spent indoors seems to matter more. One extra class cut new cases by about a quarter.
Light-level ratio is a typical range, illustrative.
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