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Why short-sightedness is on the rise?

In the late 1980s and 1990s, parents in Singapore began noticing a worrying change in their children: more and more children were becoming short-sighted.

Nobody was able to stop this national eyesight crisis. Rates of short-sightedness — also known as near-sightedness or myopia — continued to rise and rise. Today, Singapore has a myopia rate of around 80% in young adults, and has been called "the myopia capital of the world".

What happened in Singapore now appears to be happening all over the world. Countries with seemingly completely different lifestyles are unified by a startling phenomenon: rocketing rates of short-sightedness.

In the United States, about 40% of adults are short-sighted, up from 25% in 1971. Rates have similarly soared in the UK. But their situation pales in comparison with that of teens and young adults in South Korea and China, whose prevalence rates are between 84% and 97%.

可可英语晨读，每天有进步！查看每期晨读完整版中英双语全文，微信关注“可可英语晨读”公众号。更多更快更精彩的内容，尽在“可可英语晨读”公众号。