Top 5 Reasons Why Kids Should Wear Sunglasses
As a parent when the sun comes out we instantly smear our kids with the sun screen and plonk that sun hat on their head, but do you pop on those sunglasses too? Well here are some important reasons why you should!
Top 5 Reasons why it’s so Important for kids to Wear Sunglasses:
- Kids have not learnt about the risks of sun exposure yet, and tend to spend too much time looking up towards the sun compared to adults
- On a child’s eye the lens transmits about 70% more UV than in an adult eye, which means kids are at more risk of the sun affecting them.
- Sun Hats only protect your child’s eye from above, not below, so for example UV can reflects up from water, sand or concrete and that can do a lot of damage, so sunglasses protect from this.
- Just like your skin can get sunburnt, so can your eyes! And the long-term effects of sunburned eyes can increase and are not completely reversible. For example, cataract, pterygium and macular degeneration of older age are more likely to begin with childhood UV and blue light exposure. The scary thing is when a child’s eye gets sunburned, unless severe, they will never know, as they won’t feel any pain like when their skin gets sunburnt, so there is not warning signs.
- Many experts say that nearly half of the sun exposure to your eyes you will experience in your life, happens during the first 20 years of your life and children are outdoors much more than adults, especially during the summer months.
What We Can Do as Parents
As parents, it’s up to us to make sure we protect our children’s eyes more than we protected our own. We can do this by making sure we get them sunglasses and don’t rely on the cheapy sunglasses doing the job, but instead make sure we get proper ones that have 100% UV and blue light protection and be mindful that the sun’s rays are at their strongest between 10 am and 2 pm. It’s also up to us to teach our kids the importance of wearing sunglasses, just the same as Sunscreen and Seat Belts.
