UV Protection: Sun Glasses for Kids
By: Keith
Did you know that your eyes can get sunburned? It’s not easy to do, but it’s possible. Burning your cornea might not be an easy thing to accomplish, but other kinds of damage are inevitable whenever you step outside without protection. Cataracts and macular degeneration are two likelihoods of over exposure to UV radiation. And as with your skin, eye damage is cumulative over a lifetime. However, unlike your skin, there are fewer options available to reverse eye damage. Damaging your eyes now, in other words, has lasting and irreversible consequences later. We should already know the importance of keeping your and your kids’ skin protected from the sun, but don’t forget your and their eyes either. If you need sunglasses then so do your kids. If you need sunscreen and moisturizer, so do your kids. You need food, so do they. You get the point.
People who know me know how seriously I take skin cancer and treatments and scientific advancements. Every week I go looking for the most recent skin cancer news and science. But, until recently, I had a blind spot for eye health (HA HA. Get it?). I have 20/15 vision in one eye and 20/20 in the other so I figured there wasn’t any need to invest my time researching eye issues. It’s my skin that was the problem. That’s what I thought. Now that I’ve done some reading about ocular degeneration, I think differently.
What you Should Know about Ultra Violet Radiation:
Ultra violet radiation is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than soft X-rays. It isn’t thermal radiation (so you don’t feel it as heat), and it isn’t radioactive like gamma radiation. Rather, it is electromagnetic radiation that is too short to see as visible light. It’s divided into three type, UVA, UVB, and UVC wavelengths. 95% of the UV radiation that we experience is of the UVA variety. UVC radiation is entirely blocked by the ozone layer which is why most people don’t know it exists. We need protection from UVA and UVB radiation (read more about the different kinds of UV radiation here).
Don’t forget your Eyes
There is one kind of radiation that has recently been of specific interest in the research of eye health. HEV Radiation is on the short end of the visible light spectrum (not ultra violet) and has been found to be damaging to the retina with cumulative exposure. Unfortunately though, I have been unable to find kid sunglasses that incorporate this particular level of protection. But, no matter; we’ll work with what we’ve got, and that’s not too bad. There is an abundance of object lessons in why wearing sunglasses is important for you and for your kid (be they blue blockers or not) and it would be pointless to re-state what many have demonstrated already. Visit the Skin Cancer Foundation’s website to read the complete list of potential risks of UV exposure. They are abundant.
What kind of Sunglasses?
You don’t need to spend outrageously on eyewear to get good protection. Sun glasses, unfortunately, are a fashion statement when they should really be a precautionary medical device. It’s the lenses you should care about, not the silly logo on the side. That being said, manufacturers like Oakley, Maui Jim and Ray Ban have been making top notch lenses for a long time. In that sense they are not a rip-off. Still, it’s the lenses that should matter, and even some of the biggest names produce downright regular lenses attached to a meaningless logo. Don’t pay for the name unless you’re also paying for the lens is what I’m saying. Otherwise just get a cheap pair (that still offer 100% protection) and save yourself the dough. The technology that makes some lenses and frames better have to do with scratch resistance, durability, polarization and weight, not UV protection. Pay for the extras if you have the money but don’t neglect the basics.
Kids
Kids are in the sun a lot. It is not acceptable to spend a fortune on your glasses and only a few bucks on your kid’s. They need the same kind of protection as you, if not more. I’m not telling you to buy a 300 dollar pair of glasses, I’m telling you to pay more attention to the protection than the price or fashion. Ray Ban, for instance, has excellent kid glasses at about 70 bucks. It seems like a lot, and it is, but they’re also good glasses. Conversely, LL Bean has some good glasses that are a little less stylish but cost 30 bucks (much more reasonable). Or you could split the difference and get a nice pair of Bollé Kids glasses for 40-50 bucks. You can see how style is a premium, but that protection is the important part. Balance the two wisely. Only buy lenses that block 100% of UV light and that will not break the second they meet an adverse condition.
Ray Ban Kids
LL Bean Julbo Looping Kids
Bollé Kids
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Really interesting! My daughter has sun glasses but I am not sure how good they are (probably not really good since I paid only one buck for them). I bought them more because she had been trying to wear her Mr. Potato’s sun glasses for a while but without success, and she would get mad every time.
On the other hand, I heard a long time ago that to see if sun glasses are efficient, you should put two pairs of the same style together, glasses against glasses. If it is opaque, it is good. Now that I think about it, I am not convinced… Have you ever heard such a thing?
Laurie: Actually, the opaqueness of the glasses isn’t really what protects against UVA. In fact, some of the worst glasses are the darkest because they both dilate the pupils but don’t protect sufficiently against the harmful rays. Thus, with dilated pupils, you’re actually allowing more damage to be done than without glasses at all. That’s why you’ve got to make sure they protect 100%.
Creo que te encargare unas para Mia! Aqui ni hay jejejeje
When you place two sun lenses against each other you are actually checking if they are polarized sun lenses. Polarized sun lenses are the best sun protection you can get, they protect you from harmful UV rays and also also cut glare from reflecting surfaces such as car windshield, water, snow.
Sunglasses protect the eyes from harmful sunlight and some types of radiation.