Australian study says sunglasses should be part of school un

[surria]

Australian study says sunglasses should be part of school uniforms

MOST Australian teenagers own sunglasses but only half wear them regularly enough to protect them from eye disease and skin cancer, a new survey shows.

Medical eye specialists say poor results from their study of 640 adolescents support the argument that sunglasses should be part of the school uniform to protect young eyes.

The South Australian study, to be presented at an ophthalmology conference in Adelaide this weekend, found that 74 per cent of young people owned shades but half almost never wore them.

Few understood that sun exposure could cause eye diseases like cataracts, macular degeneration and skin cancer of the eyelids.

Professor Dinesh Selva from the South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology said the lower eyelids are "quite a common area'' for skin cancer and he estimates that 10 per cent of surface head and face cancers occur around the eye.

"We see about five people per week with this, and they're always surprised that there's cancer in this area,'' Prof Selva said.

The specialists compared their research with results from a similar Queensland study conducted a decade ago and found little difference in sunglass wearing habits or awareness across time or states.

"Clearly there needs to be more work in terms of education and trying to encourage sun-protective behaviours like avoiding sun exposure, wearing wrap-around sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats,'' Prof Selva said.

He said the results support specialists' calls to make sunglasses part of the school uniform.

"If it was policy to wear sunglasses whenever students were outside - as it is with the wearing of hats in some states - this would have a significant impact.''

Ophthalmologists say more needs to be done to educate people from a very young age, because sun-protective behaviours are then more likely to be carried on through to adulthood.




Man, white people just shouldn't live in that kind of a climate.