Weight, Height, and Myopia

A recently published Eye study (1) assessed weight, height, and body mass index (BMI) of young adults (taken from Israeli Defence Forces data) to determine whether there were any possible sex-specific risk factors of myopia within this cohort. The researchers examined a total of 101,438 participants (22,326 myopes and 79,112 emmetropes), 57.9 percent male and 42.1 percent female, all who were 17 years old. The cross-sectional study found that myopia was more prevalent in young males who were either underweight or obese, as well as an unexplained increased risk in the lower height decile. For young females, however, while the same links were supported in the weight categories, no prevalence was noted in the height categories.