Eye health journal
Plain-language answers to the questions we hear most — exams, kids' vision, contact lenses, and keeping your eyes healthy for the long run.
135 articles · page 6 of 6
Healthy, functioning eyesight is incredibly important to a child’s education and development. That’s because as much as 80% of all learning is visual, and experts estimate that more than half of childhood learning difficulties are the result of undiagnosed vision problems.
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Did you know that babies have to learn how to see? It might seem strange, since using our eyes is something we do automatically all day, but babies need to develop a number of visual skills in order to effectively use their eyes and process what they’re seeing, just like they have to learn how…
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A smoking habit damages every organ and system in the body, including the eyes. We typically think of lung cancer as the main health risk associated with smoking, and then maybe oral health problems next, but the parts of the body that have direct contact with the smoke aren’t the only ones hurt…
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Human eye color comes from melanin, the same compound that determines skin and hair color. Melanin absorbs light, even some UV light, which is important for the iris — the part of the eye that controls how much light enters the pupil.
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Since as early as 60 A.D., people have been using vision-correcting tools to help them see. Around that time, the Roman philosopher Seneca used a glass globe of water to magnify text, while Emperor Nero needed a magnifying emerald to see gladiator fights.
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Studies have shown that sleep deprivation hits the body and mind a lot like alcohol. That isn’t great, but where do our eyes fit into the equation?
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Back in the old days, makeup was full of ingredients like lead, arsenic, and mercury. Thankfully we don’t have to worry whether or not we’re putting actual poison on our faces when we apply modern makeup, but we should still take a few precautions to protect our eyes from unnecessary injury and…
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Among the many changes our bodies undergo as we get older are the changes to our eyesight. Early diagnosis is critical for stopping many sight-threatening conditions in their tracks, which is why we should be on the watch for signs of age-related vision loss.
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We wouldn’t have gone into the optometry field if we weren’t fascinated by eyes, and there are some incredible ones in nature. There is such incredible variation in how eyes work across the animal kingdom that we could spend years studying and barely scratch the surface, so to start out, we just…
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A staple of every school nurse’s office is the big E eye chart. That chart, the formal name of which is the Snellen chart (after the 19th-century Dutch eye doctor Herman Snellen who developed it), is certainly a good diagnostic tool for catching nearsightedness, but there are many other things…
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We tend to think of 20/20 vision being a synonym for perfect eyesight, but that isn’t quite true. All it means when someone has 20/20 vision is that they have normal visual acuity without refractive errors like nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism.
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Wearing glasses can be a big adjustment for kids when they’re just starting out. The temptation can sometimes be to leave the glasses at home instead of wearing them, even though that means going through a day of fuzzy vistas and squinting.
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Nearly everyone over the age of 65 will experience a reduced elasticity of the lenses of their eyes — a condition called presbyopia. Those of us lucky enough to have perfect vision until that age will only require reading glasses to help with up-close vision.
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Nobody likes accidentally jabbing themselves in the eye with a mascara applicator, but that isn’t the only eye health concern when it comes to cosmetics.
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We’ve all heard that eating carrots will improve our vision. They may not give us super night vision, but eating them can help keep our eyes healthy.
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