The prevalence of near sightedness or myopia has almost doubled in the past thirty years from about 25% to 44%. No one knows why but it is probably a gene-environment effect, like obesity. This recent paper in PLoS Genetics: APLP2 Regulates Refractive Error and Myopia Development in Mice and Humans, sheds light on the subject. It reports that a variant of the APLP2 gene is associated with myopia in people if they read a lot as children. Below is a figure of the result of a GWAS study showing the increase in myopia (more negative is more myopic) with age for those with the risk variant (GA) and for time spent reading. The effect size is pretty large and a myopic effect of APLP2 is seen in monkeys, mice, and humans. Thus, I think that this result will hold up. The authors also show that the APLP2 gene is involved in retinal signaling, particularly in amacrine cells. It is thus consistent with the theory that myopia is the result of feedback from the retina during development. Hence, if you are constantly focused on near objects, the eye will develop to accommodate for that. So maybe you should send your 7 year old outside to play instead of sitting inside reading or playing video games.
