Parents 'ignoring eye sun danger'

Optometrist Dr Susan Blakeney gives her tips for choosing protective shades

Three in four parents are risking their child's eyesight by exposing them to bright sun without appropriate protection, experts warn.

Nearly a third of parents in Britain do not buy their children sunglasses, a poll of 2,000 people for the College of Optometrists revealed.

Of those who do, nearly half put price before protection and only a quarter buy sunglasses from a trusted brand.

The College recommends choosing dark glasses with a CE mark for quality.

Sunglasses don't need to be expensive to offer good protection but it is important for parents to check that the pair they buy carry a CE Mark Optometrist Dr Susan Blakeney

People with light coloured eyes are most at risk from sun damage and those with blue eyes should always wear sunglasses, the experts advise.

UV rays from sunlight can damage the retina and the lens of the eye and can lead to long-term damage.

Too much exposure is linked to conditions like cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.

Wearing cheap sunglasses with no UV filters poses an even greater danger than wearing none at all because the pupils will dilate allowing more harmful rays into the eye.

BUYING TIPS Buy good quality dark sunglasses from a reputable seller Look for the standard CE mark for quality Ensure they are a good fit - children should not be able to peep over the top Bands can be worn to keep the sunglasses on - particularly useful for the sporty

And the risk is cumulative, meaning the more UV exposure a person has the higher their risk will be.

Dr Susan Blakeney, optometric adviser at the College of Optometrists, said: "I am shocked to see that so many parents aren't ensuring that their child's eyes are protected in the sun, and am equally astounded to see that of those who do, many are opting for 'cheap and cheerful' over quality.

"Sunglasses don't need to be expensive to offer good protection but it is important for parents to check that the pair they buy carry a CE mark."

She said most children would happily wear sunglasses but said a sunhat to shade the eyes would also work, particularly for infants who may pull the glasses off.

However, research has shown mixed results about whether UV causes significant damage.

Consultant paediatric ophthalmologist Michael Clarke said the issue was controversial.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists recommends children wear protective sunglasses if they are likely to be exposed to a lot of UV light, such as during a day at the beach.

Very young children should not be exposed to bright sunshine at all, says the college.

Middle-Income Family Spends $221,000 To Raise Baby: Report

It's no secret that raising children can be expensive, but how about nearly a quarter of a million dollars expensive?

A government report released Tuesday says a middle-income family with a child born last year will spend about $221,000 raising that child through age 17.

The report by the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion identified housing as the largest single expense, followed by food and child care/education costs. The $221,000 in expenses rises to about $292,000 when adjusted for inflation.

USDA economist Mark Lino, who co-authored the report with Andrea Carlson, often hears people say children cost a lot when the annual findings are issued.

"I tell them children also have many benefits, so you have to keep that in mind," he said.

Families with more income spend more money on child-related costs, the report said. A two-parent family that earns less than $57,000 annually will spend about $160,000 on a child from birth through high school. Those with an income between $57,000 and $99,000 spend about $221,000 and those with higher incomes are expected to spend roughly $367,000 through age 17.

Most single-parent households in the U.S. make less than $57,000 and are expected to spend about 7 percent less on child-rearing costs compared to two-parent households in that same income group, according to the report.

Costs of raising a child are highest in the urban northeast and lowest in the urban south and rural areas.

The USDA report helps courts and states determine child-support guidelines and foster care payments. It does not address costs specifically related to childbearing and paying for college.

One of the largest changes over time has been the increase in costs related to care for young children.

The report was first issued in 1960, when such costs were largely negligible, but with more working families turning to outside help with child care, it has grown to be a significant expense for many families. The report does not give total costs related to early child care.

A mother of three, Raben Andrews of St. Louis, said the government figures sounded right to her. "Well, that's not half of it," joked the 42-year-old public school teacher. "I still have to put the little buggers through college."

Autism 'hits body language skill'

Problems processing visual information may stop those with autism interpreting body language, harming their ability to gauge others' emotions, a study says.

Researchers say people with autism have problems recognising physical displays of emotion, but also general difficulty perceiving certain sorts of motion.

They suggest in Neuropsychologia this may contribute to problems with social interaction, characteristic of autism.

The National Autistic Society said the UK study was an interesting one.

A team from the University of Durham studied 13 adults with autism and found the patients had difficulty identifying emotions such as anger or happiness when shown short animated video clips.

Silent movies

The characters had no faces, nor did they speak, so the participants were asked to judge the emotion based on the body language of the figure alone.

Along with 16 adults with no autism diagnosis, they were also shown a number of dots on a computer screen and asked which way they were moving. A proportion of dots moved noticeably to the left or right, while the others moved randomly.

The way people move their bodies tells us a lot about their feelings or intentions, and we use this information on a daily basis to communicate with each other Anthony Atkinson Lead author

The performance of the autism group was significantly below that of the others in both tests, leading researchers to speculate that there may be serious differences between the ability to process visual information.

They point to an area of the brain needed for the perception of motion called the superior temporal sulcus, and cite previous research which has found that this area responds differently in people with autism.

"The way people move their bodies tells us a lot about their feelings or intentions, and we use this information on a daily basis to communicate with each other.

"We use others' body movements and postures, as well as people's faces and voices, to gauge their feelings," said Anthony Atkinson, who led the research.

"People with autism are less able to use these cues to make accurate judgements about how others are feeling.

"We now need to look further to see how exactly this happens and how this may combine with potential difficulties in attention."

It is thought as many as half a million people in the UK have a form of autism, a lifelong developmental disability which can severely affect how a person makes sense of the world around them.

Gina Gomez De La Cuesta, of the National Autistic Society, said the study was an interesting one.

"It certainly takes us on. We know of these problems with emotion recognition but to start to unpick the reasons why is helpful. There appear to be difficulties at the very basic processing level.

"But we really need to see this repeated in more people and then we can start thinking about how we act on it."