Funmurphys: the Blog

Myopia Is Hereditary

Now I have another thing to blame my parents for - my nearsightedness. Although my mother was barely nearsighted, my father not at all until late in life (as he would put it "I'm near sighted on my distant vision and farsighted on my near vision"), I'm very nearsighted, and my brother had better than average vision. According to researchers at Ohio State University, your chance of developing myopia (nearsightedness) increases if your parents have it. They also found that myopic children spend more time reading for pleasure and score higher in a test of basic reading and language skills. I've sat in meetings of engineers and counted how many wore glasses (plus how many were white and male), and many's the time I've been in meetings where we all were white males wearing glasses or contacts.