SINGAPORE Escalating myopia rates in Singapore may be the result of a competitive education system driving children to read more and at a younger age, researchers said recently. Singapore has the world's most myopic population, and preliminary results from a study of 1,900 primary students found that reading and family history have closer associations with myopia than watching television and playing computer games. According to the study, 26 percent of seven-year-olds are shortsighted, rising to 32 percent of eight-year-olds and 48 percent of nine-year-olds, AFP reported. Children who read more than two books a week and whose parents are myopic are 10 times more likely to be short-sighted than a non-reader whose parents have good eyesight. Between 1966 and 1999 the number of seven-year-olds suffering from myopia doubled, according to the Singapore Eye Research Institute. "There must be something in our environment that is causing myopia rates here to increase every year," said Donald Tan, who heads the institute. Clinical investigator Chua Wei Han ruled out genes as a cause "because the gene pool hasn't changed." But environmental factors which may have contributed to the myopia epidemic include the increasing pressure children face in school as they are hothoused to produce academic excellence. "When I was in primary one, I was one of the few who could read. But now, if you can't read in primary one, the teachers are likely to tell you that you are behind your peers," said Tan. But Tan said there was no "scientific opinion" that intense reading was a cause of Singapore's high myopia rate, and the current study by the institute and the Singapore National Eye Center would continue until 2005. With children starting to read at an earlier age, eye specialists say they are seeing patients as young as four years old. "It may too late for us to start (research) at seven-years-olds as many of the children who enter primary school are already myopic," Tan said. Singapore primary schools conduct programs to encourage reading. "If we find that a student is weak in reading, we will assign an older student as a reading buddy to help the student along," said Daphne Poh, a primary school teacher. Researchers said the results were only a snapshot of the study and the statistical data would be more conclusive when the study was completed.