Globally, children and adolescents have increasingly adopted a more sedentary lifestyle, and they have become more occupied with digital devices in pace with the digital revolution during the last 30–40 years [
1]. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has, for many individuals, led to detriments in physical activity and a further increase in sedentary behaviour and use of near digital devices [
2,
3]. Sedentary behaviour increases from childhood to adulthood [
4]. Concurrently, the prevalence of headache, neck and low back pain increases, and these conditions are leading causes of sickness absence globally [
5‐
8]. Further, in the age group 10–24 years both headache disorders and low back pain have increased during the last 30 years [
8]. Near tasks, such as use of near digital devices, require high activity in extra- and intraocular muscles and precise coordination between the visual system and the head-stabilizing muscles. Therefore, uncorrected vision and lack of proper corrective eye wear, will induce eyestrain, upper body muscle tension, and unhealthy, static postures (such as forward bent head). This in turn may cause headache and neck, shoulder, and back pain [
9‐
18]. Among Nordic school children, as many as 40% have uncorrected vision, lacking proper corrective eye wear for satisfactory and effortless vision during tasks at near (reading, writing, screen use) or far (reading a blackboard) [
19‐
22]. Refractive errors, poor accommodation (reduced ability to focus at near), and binocular dysfunctions (poor coordination between the two eyes), have been associated with headache and upper body musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents [
14,
17,
20,
22‐
25]. Furthermore, studies in children and adolescents indicate that physical inactivity, obesity, sleeping problems, prolonged near work and screen use, socioeconomic and psychosocial factors, and female sex, are risk factors involved in the development of spinal pain and headache [
16,
26‐
43]. Importantly, neck, shoulder and back pain and headache can lead to reduced daily functioning and academic performance, and impair recreational activities, thereby constituting a major health problem [
41,
44‐
47]. Additionally, uncorrected vision and lack of proper corrective eye wear may impact the child’s ability to sustain near tasks over time, such as reading and writing, and thus reducing academic performance [
22]. Optimal vision is essential for developing cognitive abilities associated with learning to read and write [
48‐
56]. Wearing glasses for one school year, when these are needed, compared to not wearing them, has been reported to advance the child’s knowledge equivalent of one semester’s learning [
57,
58]. Cognition and academic performance have also been shown to increase with physical activity interventions and decrease with low motor performance and recurrent pain problems [
59‐
63].
The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between symptoms of laboured reading, musculoskeletal pain, uncorrected vision, and lifestyle behaviours in children and adolescents. In this study ‘uncorrected vision’ was defined as common vision problems that can be fully corrected with eye wear (glasses or contact lenses), including refractive errors and accommodative and binocular dysfunctions.