CNN’s homepage today highlights the plight of Teddy – a 4 year old kid with almost all kinds of allergies imaginable: Chicken nuggets, Sandwiches, Play-Doh, etc. My sympathies go with him and his family as they go through this turmoil. Moving on, the reason I write this post is because most American Kids are born in a bubble. It frustrates me to no extent that the reason these kids develop allergies is because most parents do not wish to risk their kids health by exposing them to allergens at an early age. Most of these allergies could have been preventable had the parents took him out for a walk, let him play in the mid and with pets.
Back home in India, we have a growing number of children with asthma. The reason – adoption of western culture. Ask your parents if they knew someone with Asthma when they were a kid – probably not or maybe a few. I remember my parents allowed me to play in mud, splash in puddles – basically have the time of my life and build a healthy immune system.
Why do we have such a sudden increase in allergies incidence globally? Some possible reasons are the over-protective nature of modern parents (they literally bubble wrap their children till they are 5-6 yrs old), lack of breast feeding (Facebook is not helping either), Opposition to immunizations (yes!!! can you believe it).
There’s a lady in my class, 27-28 yrs old, with a 3 year old son. She refuses to vaccinate her child due to reasons like
- Fears of autism
- Toxic compounds in the vaccine
- Too many pathogens introduce in too little time, etc
and she is a birth attendant who advices people to have natural births rather than through cosmetic operations. I’m pretty sure that she advocates her beliefs onto her patients (at a time when they are more receptive to health information – pregnancy) – which is wrong ethically and from a public health perspective.
I mean COME ON!!!, if you treat all your children like this, he/she is probably going to wind up like Teddy. I say, let kids be kids, give them a swift kick in the butt and throw them outdoors.They don’t need vegan cheese, organic fruits, 1% milk – all they need is good ‘ol mother nature.
Don’t be a wuss!
April 4th, 2009 at 12:24 am
As I can agree with you on some of the above points (parents to over-protective) there is no way of telling how or why children develop food allergies. I can say, yes, I am an American but I can also tell you that my son, the same age as Teddy was BORN with these life threatening allergies, and several more than listed about Teddy, he did not develop them after a period of time. I don’t think that there is anyway to say that we keep our kids in a bubble because for me, that is completely false. I love my kids to be out and run and play and be social and have never tried to hide my children from any germs or have them live in a bubble, but still, my son was rushed to the ICU Neonatal unit at birth because of his reaction to the air on his skin. From that moment on, we have fought for his life everyday due to his food-allergy condition. While it was undiagnosed for 1 year, we did not shelter him from the outside world because of an ongoing rash and consider ourselves lucky to still have him with us since we didn’t know what his illness was caused from for a year. At any given time he could have died and with any meal he had for 365+ days. I have thought to myself many sleepless nights of what I could have done to cause my sons condition while in utero, and I will never know the answer to that question. I have an older child who is completely healthy and no concerns and another, completely the oppisite who walks a very fine line daily. For these children and adults who suffer with such an exhaustingly fragile condition, there is no blame that should be put on us parents. I love my son more than life itself and would give my life in a second to take away his allergies, but I know in my heart that I did not cause this from protecting him to much, because the only protecting I did until his problems started was to carry him to a full term pregnancy. I think blaming a bubble and Americans is going entirely to far and I think its completely ridiculous.