Quote:
Originally Posted by trisigma212
I think the reason these allergies are popping up because kids 1) aren't going outside as much when they are younger and 2) are eating different foods than we did. I know my parents made me eat whatever they prepare and I'm sure there are a lot of parents that feed kids whatever they want in order to pacify them.
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I don't buy that. It would be one thing if the allergies developed around the same age uniformly, but they don't. I ate what was in front of my plate and it didn't stop me from having food allergies; I went outside all the time, and run about 20 miles a week now, and I've always had environmental allergies, even as a tiny kid. My parents are outdoorsy types, so it wasn't that I was holed up inside the house. My grandmother developed a very severe shellfish allergy in her late 20s, after her first pregnancy and after a lifetime of eating shellfish. So, while I'm sure it's cute to blame the increased prevalence of allergies on overprotective parents, it's not the case.
This is probably an extreme case, but every so often I go in for my allergen testing. Each year I have a reaction to a different allergen that I didn't have an issue to the previous years. I wonder if kids are reacting to the allergen in the skin tests, where they wouldn't necessarily present symptoms in real life. That triggers the allergy notifications and it's all downhill from there.
While peanut reactions are the most common food allergy death, they're still pretty rare. Because of the 24-hour news cycle, increased parental education/awareness of issues, and the fear of litigation, we're just hearing a lot more about it.
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