Food allergies education. How many of you educate yourselves about food allergies, especially if your children don’t even have them? How many of you think about keeping children with allergies safe?
We have friends whose son has extreme allergies. She has to carry an Epipen. I remember a story she told of her older daughter helping with dinner preparations – making tacos – her daughter neglected to wash her hands after touching the different ingredients. After dinner her son started to get a red, itchy face…a sign of an allergic reaction. They determined that when their daughter made the tacos the residue from the cheese on her fingers caused their son to react to his dairy allergy. Amazing. Our friends are not the only ones suffering through the challenges of extreme allergies. There are so many children with life threatening allergies now that there are Food Allergy Initiatives and Ministries to support and help families, especially in dealing with their child(ren) attending school.
Last year there was an article featured on Yahoo that I thought worthy of attention, even a year later, because I believe food allergies education is crucial to keeping children with allergies safe.
Nearly 6 million or 8% of children have food allergies with young children affected most.[1]
The prevalence of food allergies and associated anaphylaxis appears to be on the rise. [2]
According to a study released in 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about an 18% increase in food allergy was seen between 1997 and 2007. [3]
Even though I homeschool I feel it is important for us as parents to educate not only ourselves but also our children about food allergies because we all either know someone with deadly allergies or will inevitably meet someone with them. It is important for the safety of children with food allergies that we are aware and alert to the fact that our children need to know how to safely offer treats to their friends because there isn’t always going to be an adult around to “save” an allergic child from a harmful ingredient.
Please share what you have done to increase yours and your children’s food allergies education.
[1][2][3] FoodAllergy.org Food Allergy Facts and Statistics for the U.S. http://www.foodallergy.org/page/facts-and-stats
Wow. We don’t have any food allergies so far. Praying it stays that way!
I can’t believe that we somehow dodged the food allergies. None of my family has any food allergies.
We’ve slowly added foods to both my son’s diets to check for allergies…we are working on peanuts now. It can be scary!
You make a good point that we should probably teach our kids how to deal with the situation should it arise with a peer.
Luckily, none of us have food allergies. It’s definitely important to educate people.
My neice is allergic to pretty much everything I get so nervous when my kids play with her thinking they might accidentally give her something she can’t have.
Allergies scare me!
None so far, but I have contact dermititis and didn’t develop it until I was in my thirties. :/
not only is it important for us to be educated about food allergies, but we really should be asking ourselves why these children are developing such severe food allergies. It is on the rise and should be taken very seriously. One reason is the processed foods we eat, the fact that they are full of chemicals and that our bodies were not made to ingest these types of foods. More should be done to educate people on what they are actually putting in their bodies.
I agree Maryann, but in the case of my friend’s son, they eat all organic, they raise their own meat etc. It may be environmental for him…as I know he’s improved a little bit since he was younger but it’s still severe.
Thankfully all three of my children don’t have any specific allergies however we have made it a priority to eat as clean, organic and gluten free as possible.
The number of kids with alleries just seems to keep skyrocketing.