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!
Its been a long time since the band was involved in a serious gig and we’ll be landing a good one on April 5th, 2009. More details can be found at the band’s website. We just had some fun last weekend in Vineeth’s backyard. I figured I’d put up some pictures to share with everyone. We’ll be streaming our next performance live on the web and you can check out some of our test runs at www.qik.com/vzx
I should have posted this a long time ago but it skipped my mind. It’s pretty much self-explanatory and served as a good entertainment source in the bathroom – Don’t get any wrong ideas. The pleasure was more auditory than tactile (if you know what I mean). This particular video was shot in my previous apt’s bathroom – too bad I never actually got to meet the singer in person. I might have given him the Oscar for the best bathroom singer. Long live bathroom vents and paper thin walls. Hail USA.
