Why Are Allergies/Disorders More Common Nowadays Then When We Were Kids?

[Seil]

So I've got no hard medical data to back this up, but from what I understand, there are more children with allergies and behavioral disorders now then there was when I was growing up. I can remember one person from elementary school in Ontario - Eric - that I invited to my birthday party, and he had down syndrome. Now I'm meeting all these kids with ADHD, can't have nuts, can't have fat, can't get sick...

My mum was doing a Spring theater camp - Spring Break-A-Leg - and there was a young girl who was allergic to fresh fruit and vegetables. I never knew someone like that when I was a kid - so the conversation at dinner tonight was "What's going on?"

There was the idea that many of these children in my time were home schooled, or passed away because of a lack of understanding of their condition, or something to that effect. Another theory was environmental - is there some way that kids are getting sick because of pollution? Is it genetic experimentation - giving that cow steroids to make it grow faster? What's going on?

[Doc ock rokc]

Its a Mixture of Genetic and Environmental.

Your body would ether see something that you have never been exposed to or something down the line from your family was never exposed to and It overreacts.
So keeping children inside with no pets and stuff would sometimes Lead to a kid that has allergies on Pets and Pollen.

Because Kids tend to have a Tendency of being inside more they most likely will develop more allergies. Hell I had a friend that Was exposed to Poison ivy so much he never had a reaction to it. While another friend of mine was born up north and didn't have allergies up their but when he moved down here he has a bad case of them.

The Child could have been allergic to leftover compounds of the Insecticide. that's why Fresh fruit & veggies would have a effect over canned fruit and veggies

[Viridis]

Some thing are just us diagnosing it more because we can recognize it better, which is argued as the reason for the rise in ADHD cases (or so I hear. I remember this but can't find any sources), as an example

[POS Industries]

Better medical science allowing for less early childhood deaths due to allergies and disorders, as well.

[bluestarultor]

They practically hand out ADHD diagnoses with the Sunday paper these days. Or I should say student IDs. In many cases, given an overworked mental health care system (at least in America), teachers will notice a kid fidgeting, label him disruptive (and it's often boys), suggest a diagnosis of ADHD, shunt him off to a child psychiatrist who's too busy to actually check, and the kid ends up scarfing pills for the rest of his career when it's less that there's a real problem with him and more that the drugs shut him up to compensate for a fundamentally backwards educational system that takes all the fun out of learning, when kids are programmed to find learning fun.

On the allergies front, we keep things way too clean. Kids with fuzzy animals around tend not to develop allergies because they're exposed to allergens and build a natural resistance, as mentioned before.

There's also pollution, though, which can end up in kids getting sick. Unfortunately, things like autism aren't really well-understood, so trying to label any one cause is just likely going to trash stuff that probably isn't totally at fault. Really, though, in our efforts to keep stuff clean, we're coating our surfaces in toxins with possible neurological effects, which kids then ingest, which can cause everything from brain damage to kidney failure. We're so terrified of germs, most of which are fairly harmless, that we forget just how nasty our chemicals can be.

[Doc ock rokc]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

They practically hand out ADHD diagnoses with the Sunday paper these days. Or I should say student IDs.

Don't get me started on this. Because I used to be the Most bullied person in the school I was recommended to several child psychologists because Obviously the kid getting wailed on every time the teacher has his/her back turned is just asking for it. all of them gave me EVERY diagnosis under the rainbow Depression, ADD, ADHD, Some other less common mental disorders, Possible Brain damage, etc etc (except one who said i was most likely traumatized at school but otherwise fine but my dad didn't like Because of his Price) They are seriously have no clue what they are doing.

[Premmy]

Nostalgia

[BitVyper]

There's also the fact that we're better at diagnosing things than we used to be, so we catch more of them. But yeah, overdiagnosis is an issue too.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by BitVyper

There's also the fact that we're better at diagnosing things than we used to be, so we catch more of them. But yeah, overdiagnosis is an issue too.

this plus parents who can't believe that they raised their kids to be asshats, I mean obviously they didn't have that much of an effect by leaving them in front of a TV instead of socializing them properly, and will simply keep going to different doctors until one of them throws a prescription at them instead of telling them why its their fault for fucking up.

[Amake]

I think the rise in Autism related disorders is because we're the next step in evolution, and now that the world is slowly turning into a place where we can live, we do. That's just me of course.

Allergies I blame on antibiotics and overly sterile environments. Frequently dip your kid in raw sewage and it'll be like Achilles. Maybe.