A 20/30 vision score means “people have to be at 20 feet to see” things that “I can see at 30 feet.”

A new bombshell has entered the villa: fact-checkers. 

On June 16 in Episode 13 of “Love Island USA,” Mackenzie “Kenzie” Annis told her then-partner, Caleb McDaniel, that 20/30 vision “means that what (other) people have to be at 20 feet to see, I can see at 30 feet.” 

See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Snuggled up in “Soul Ties,” a secluded section of the villa where intimate conversations often occur, Caleb shared that he had “fighter pilot vision” because of his 20/13 vision score. With no way to verify the information through external sources, Caleb dropped the topic after Kenzie asserted that a higher second number in a vision score means better vision. 

But the rest of us don’t have to take Kenzie at her word. 

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, 20/20 vision is normal, or what the average person can see on an eye chart from 20 feet away. The first number represents a person’s distance from the chart while reading it, and the second number is the distance someone with average vision would have to stand from the lettering to clearly see the same line. 

Kenzie said, “I was in nursing school, bro,” to explain why she thinks her 20/30 score is superior, but her score indicates slightly below-average vision. It means she must be 20 feet away to clearly see objects that the average person can see clearly at 30 feet. Caleb’s 20/13 vision is 30% better than the average person. (The average visual acuity for a professional baseball player is also 20/13.) 

Kenzie, who is a recent graduate of the Wellstar School of Nursing at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, was unavailable for comment because she remains digitally disconnected as part of the show’s real-time format. 

Our ruling

Kenzie said a 20/30 vision score “means that what (other) people have to be at 20 feet to see, I can see at 30 feet.” 

We don’t want to step on any toes in the villa, but she swapped the meaning of the two numbers in the vision score. Her 20/30 vision means that she must be 20 feet away from an object to clearly see what the average viewer needs 30 feet of distance to see. With that kind of vision, you may miss an islander’s head turning at the new bombshell. 

We rate the statement False.