- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
- Reaction score
- 19,505
- Age
- 64
- Location
- I'm liek, in Cali, dude.
- Lifestyle
- Vegetarian
Back in the good old days, very few kids had severe allergies. Now they are everywhere. What happened?
One in every 13 kids has a food allergy. That comes out to an average of two students in every classroom. The number of allergic and asthmatic kids multiplied two or three times over in the late 20th century, and food allergies in particular remain on the increase. The New York Times observes that “each new generation seems to have more severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reactions than the last.”
In the 1970s I didn’t know a single child with a food allergy. I brought a peanut butter sandwich to school every day, causing not one problem. Since then, peanut allergies have skyrocketed, tripling in just the 11 years between 1997 and 2008. We have gone from cafeterias full of peanut butter to banning the stuff altogether. My niece’s camp confiscated the chocolate I sent her because it contained “traces of nuts.”
Experts have some theories about the cause of what they call the allergy epidemic. One is that we’ve gotten too clean.
http://www.care2.com/causes/why-are-so-many-kids-deathly-allergic-to-food.html
Some interesting theories. I have no food allergies that I know of. I have sensitivities, but AFAIK they are not life threatening.