More US Kids Have Food Allergies

Photo: Istock / Elke Dennis

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By now we've all heard of kids who aren't allowed to bring peanut butter sandwiches to school due to the risk the innocent-looking lunch might pose to a child with a peanut allergy.

Though this might not have been the case when you were in grade school, there is evidence the number of children with food allergies is on the rise.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a door-to-door study of American households and concluded that about 1 in 26 children had food allergies last year, according to the AP.

That's a lot of allergic children. The CDC says this is up from 1997 numbers, which were 1 in 29 children.

It's an 18 percent increase and Amy Branum, the study's lead author, says in the article that is significant enough to be considered more than a statistical blip.

But the article says that some experts say this increase might be due to the fact that parents are more aware and more likely to take their children to a specialist who would look for a food allergy. Decades ago, those children might have been categorized as having weak stomachs.

Other factors that come into play are a doubling in peanut allergies, and that children seem to be taking longer to outgrow milk and egg allergies.

The article says that the CDC found children with food allergies were more likely to have asthma, eczema and respiratory problems than kids without food allergies, aligning with previous research.

A recently published book, Flourishing with Food Allergies, tackles the topic of coping with a child who suffers from a food allergy.

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