Protect Your Eyes From the Sunlight & Reflected UV Rays this Summer - You Only Have One Set!

Summer is here and that usually means spending more time enjoying fun, summer outdoor activities with the family.  During the summer, we spend time outdoors as a family every single day, and the majority of our weekends are spent outside at sporting events, family functions, or boating on the lake!

When thinking about upcoming vacations, sporting events, and summer barbeques, how does your family protect against the sun? Hats? Sunglasses? Umbrellas?

I wrote this review while participating in an Influencer campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. and received a promotional item from Mom Central to thank me for participating.

My husband had lasik eye surgery several years ago and our teenage son wears contact lenses, so proper eye care and protection is critical in our family.  We keep sunglasses in every vehicle and our boat.

Interesting facts about the sun and your eyes: The Sun & Your Eyes: What You Need to Know

• Did you know that while direct sunlight can be extremely harmful to the eyes, reflected UV rays (i.e., from water, grass, sand) can be even more harmful?
• Do you know the times of day when the sun is most damaging to eyes? It’s not what you think – research suggests that from Spring through Fall, when the days get longer, the incidence of eye exposure to UV rays is actually greatest earlier and later in the day.

• Short-term damage to the eyes may be hard to notice, but over the long-term, the sun can cause irreversible harm to all structures of the eye and surrounding tissue that are left unprotected or under-protected. These conditions may not manifest for years at which point the damage is already done and it is too late to reverse the effects of the sun. That’s why it is important to start protecting eyes from childhood.
• Younger eyes are more susceptible to exposure to the sun’s harmful rays than adults. Children have larger pupils (allowing more light into their eyes), clearer lenses, and are outside without eye protection much more frequently and for longer periods than most adults.   It is estimated that a significant amount of lifetime exposure to UV rays may occur by age 18 and that children’s annual dose of UV radiation is three times that of adults.
• Although direct light from the sun itself can be damaging to eyes, reflected ultraviolet (UV) rays from surfaces such as grass, soil, dry sand, water, and snow can also be harmful.  UV protection also is important on a cloudy day as the sun's rays can pass through thin clouds, exposing your eyes to harmful UV radiation.
•  While most sunglasses can help block UV rays from entering through the lenses, most frame styles do not prevent rays from reaching the eyes from the sides, top, and bottom of the glasses. Hats with brims offer no protection from UV rays reflected up from ground surfaces such as pavement, sand, and water.
•  UV BLOCKING CONTACT LENSES can provide an important level of additional protection from UV exposure. Not all contact lenses offer UV protection, and, of those that do, not all provide similar absorption levels. ACUVUE® is the only major brand of contact lenses which blocks approximately 97% of UV-B and 81% of UV-A rays as standard across the entire range of its products.*

For more helpful information, please visit “Fast Facts for Your Health: The Sun & Your Eyes: What You Need to Know” on the ACUVUE® Brand website.

How do you protect your eyes from the sun?



*When writing about the benefits of UV blocking contact lenses, please note that although UV-blocking contact lenses are beneficial in helping to protect against harmful UV rays entering into the eye, long-term clinical studies have not been done to show that they directly reduce the risk of any specific eye disease or condition.