Students doing eye exercises. The activity's ability to decrease myopia is still up for debate. [Photo: Imagine China]
Netizens have been arguing about the effectiveness of so-called "eye exercises" done in school, Yangtse Evening Newspaper reports.
Some netizens claim that these exercises is not just useless, but can also spread eye diseases such as conjunctivitis.
"Of all the countries in the world, only Chinese students do eye exercises. And this so-called protective exercise has harmed our teenagers for 49 years. It can't improve people's vision, and it can spread eye diseases. After 49 years of doing eye exercise, more than 360 million Chinese teenagers suffer myopia, the second largest percentage in the world," said one netizen named "Shanghai on Live" on his microblog.
Eye exercises were developed in 1963 by Liu Shiming, former director of the P.E. department at the Peking University Health Science Center. The exercise was implemented across China, but the scientific foundation is open to debate.
Some netizens agree that the exercise is useless, but others think it helps relax the eyes.
The directors at the ophthalmology department in several hospitals in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province, responded by saying that these exercises do not help vision but that they can help "relax" the eye.
As for whether doing eye exercises spreads infectious diseases, Zhang Xiaojun, director of the ophthalmology department at a hospital affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, says this won't occur as long as everyone washes their hands.
The more crucial problem is that it's difficult for students to find the acupuncture points to perform the eye exercises correctly. Reporters from the Yangtse Evening Newspaper visited several primary schools in Nanjing and found that the process is largely directed by teachers.
"Generally speaking, students aren't able to find the right acupuncture points, and the main reason for doing this exercise is to have their eyes rest for five minutes," one teacher told the media.
