Sun safety… we all know the Cancer Council’s Slip Slop Slap campaign.  But how many of us know that as of 2010 it was changed to include Seek and Slide.  The seek was in respect to seek shade and the slide in relation to putting on sunglasses.  Queensland has the highest rate of skin cancers in the world, so sun protection is an important issue, that we need to deal with on a daily basis.

If we are to follow the Australian Cancer Council’s guidelines, we should be wearing sunglasses, sunscreen, a broad brimmed hat, and seeking shade while outside.  My very real concern, is that many of us aren’t donning the sunglasses regularly.  Or even if we are wearing sunglasses, they don’t meet Australian Standards.

For the sunglasses to be affective they need to cover most of the eye socket.  Wrap around sunglasses tend to provide better side protection, than those that are flat at the front, leaving the sides open.

With respect to children and babies it is important to get them in the habit of wearing sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses when they go outside to play.  The damage from the sun is cumulative.  Which means like on your skin you may not see sun burn every day but the damage is built up over time.  The damage is also built up in your eyes and leads to cataracts, pterygium, pingeculi and linked to the eye diseases of Glaucoma and Macular Degeneration.

By wearing sunglasses you are not only protecting your eyes from UV damage, you are also protecting the skin around the eyes, which if we are honest are difficult to sunscreen as we tend to get the stuff in our eyes and it hurts.  It makes sense to start the children off the right way and set them up for the best eye health going into the future.