When I was younger, my mom would always want me to have carrots as a snack. When I gave her a hard time because I wanted cookies and sweets instead of carrots she would always respond by saying how eating carrots will help my eyesight. Ever since I have always eaten a lot f carrots thinking that they were the reason for my 20/20 vision but were they?
We all know carrots are a healthy and delicious vegetable that have a good source of Vitamins and nutirents but do they really help your vision? According to an article entitled “Fact or Fiction? Carrots Improve Your Vision?” carrots do in fact help your vision but only in certain conditions. According to Emily Chew, deputy clinical director at the National Eye Institute, carrots provide beta-carotene which is essential in order for the body to produce vitamin A. The body then uses that vitamin A to help convert light to signals in the brain. In easier terms, vitamin A helps people see better in dim or very low lighting. Additionally, vitamin A is very essential for a healthy cornea. Although carrots are a good source of vitamin A, they obviously aren’t the only source. Products like milk sweet potato and red peppers also have high levels of this vitamin. So why are carrots the only ones that everyone says are so good for our eyes? How can we prove that the vitamin A provided by carrots actually helps our vision? To find results for this hypothesis, an experimental procedure can be conducted. Scientists can have one group of people with all different eye colors and eye sight eat carrots with one meal everyday. On the other hand, there is another group of people all with identical eye color and sight to a person in the other group. These people will not eat carrots with their meal. After weeks of monitoring, scientists will be able to form a hypothesis that either correlates or doesn’t correlate with their hypothesis. Although this experiment could work, there are a couple of flaws. The outcome could easily been due to chance or even a 3rd variable. So even if the evidence does correlate, there is no definite answer derived from that experiment.
Next time you are getting a salad or buying lunch, don’t pick out or eat around the carrots, eat them because they are a great source of vitamin A which is healthy for your eyes.
Sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-carrots-improve-your-vision/
Ethan’s statement makes me wonder if they had conducted any scientific experiments before that statement was made, or if there were only experiments conducted after the fact. Jennifer, is the experiment that you described an actual experiment that was conducted or one that you believe would be effective? If this is a proposed idea for a study I think it has a great concept. The experiment can’t be a double blind study because the participants would be able to tell if they were eating carrots or not. Would you take into consideration the age of the participants and possible outside variables like amount of time exposed to the television and other strenuous activities? I think there are a lot of other variables that need to be explored before this experiment can begin, but the beginning concept is good. Here is another article that touches on the WWII propaganda as well. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/10/26/1392430.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience
I have never been a fan of carrots but my mom always told me to eat them as well. If there was an experiment conducted it would be very hard to see if the results were do to a confounding variable or chance. Also if a correlation was found would we be able to generalize it to people of all ages? In order to perform a proper experiment we would need people of all ages and different levels of eye sight. Although we correlate carrots with improved eye sight, are carrots just a soft endpoint? The correlation is really between Vitamin A and eye sight. Here is an article with more examples of foods that are rich in Vitamin A and supposedly good for your eye sight. http://bembu.com/vitamin-a-foods
I have never been a fan of carrots but my mom always told me to eat them as well. If there was an experiment conducted it would be very hard to see if the results were do to a confounding variable or chance. Also if a correlation was found would we be able to generalize it to people of all ages? In order to perform a proper experiment we would need people of all ages and different levels of eye sight. Although we correlate carrots with improved eye sight, are carrots just a soft endpoint? The correlation is really between Vitamin A and eye sight. Here is an article with more examples of foods that are rich in Vitamin A and supposedly good for your eye sight. http://bembu.com/vitamin-a-foods
I have never been a fan of carrots but my mom always told me to eat them as well. If there was an experiment conducted it would be very hard to see if the results were do to a confounding variable or chance. Also if a correlation was found would we be able to generalize it to people of all ages? In order to perform a proper experiment we would need people of all ages and different levels of eye sight. Although we correlate carrots with improved eye sight, are carrots just a soft endpoint? The correlation is really between Vitamin A and eye sight. Here is an article with more examples of foods that are rich in Vitamin A and supposedly good for your eye sight. http://bembu.com/vitamin-a-foods
I have never been a fan of carrots but my mom always told me to eat them as well. If there was an experiment conducted it would be very hard to see if the results were do to a confounding variable or chance. Also if a correlation was found would we be able to generalize it to people of all ages? In order to perform a proper experiment we would need people of all ages and different levels of eye sight. Although we correlate carrots with improved eye sight, are carrots just a soft endpoint? The correlation is really between Vitamin A and eye sight. Here is an article with more examples of foods that are rich in Vitamin A and supposedly good for your eye sight. http://bembu.com/vitamin-a-foods
It all dates back to WWII where this whole idea started of carrots giving you good vision because pilots of fighter jets in the US army was saying that carrots helped them with their shooting. Who knew they were telling the truth. It was interesting understanding exactly how carrots help instead of just assuming they work. They just don’t work to the degree I wanted because we get Vitamin A from many places so carrots don’t matter as much but they are still great snack. Plus I heard if you eat too many, your eyes turn orange, or skin, or something.