By Anne Gould 

Anti-Bullying Week ends today and whilst celebrities like Pixie Lott and Lily Allen may wear "geek chic" glasses as fashion statements, whether they need them or not, normal children who wear glasses worry about wearing them at school.

Research has shown that children who wear glasses feel more confidently about their appearance without glasses and self-esteem at this age is critical to future development. However more and more children are short-sighted - myopia rates have doubled in the last 30 years. 

The teen' years are also when pupils participate most actively in sport and children's glasses are not usually permitted in school sporting activities for health and safety reasons. Children often have to participate without their glasses and without 100% vision this affects their ability to compete successfully in most sports.

Conventional contact lenses for children have their disadvantages in the sporting arena. Contact lenses should not been worn while swimming or in the shower and they fall out during contact sports like rugby. Children still need glasses to see when contact lenses are removed and children's eyes often feel tired after wearing lenses all day, so they switch to glasses to give their eyes a rest.

A new alternative to conventional contact lenses and glasses for children is Overnight Vision Correction (OVC). This involves wearing a therapeutic overnight  contact lens while sleeping, correcting eyesight by gently reshaping the cornea in the area over the pupil. The benefit is natural vision during the day without the need for daytime contact lenses or glasses. OVC overnight contact lenses are also optically corrected which means 24 hr vision - you can see while wearing them, for instance when first awakening and then more importantly when they are removed.

Overnight Vision Correction is a halfway house between conventional vision correction and eye laser surgery - which is not permitted on children and teenagers as it takes until the age of around 21 for vision to stabilize.

Overnight Vision Correction is suitable for all ages with children as young as six benefiting. The earlier the treatment is started the more potential therapeutic effect they have. Recent research indicates that overnight contact lenses may slow or even halt the progression of myopia in children.

With Myopia rates almost doubling due to lifestyle changes - the increased use of computers, mobile phones, texting (Teenagers now spend an average of 7hrs in the online world), and spending less time outside in natural light. Short-sightedness and wearing glasses is a major issue for children and teens of today.

Find out is your child can wear overnight corrective contact lenses by filling the online questionaire