Immunities In Doubt

Since starting Thinkertots 12 years ago, I have had the pleasure of meeting many hundreds of children. In the last five years, I have noticed something about the general health of today’s children. It seems to me that there is such a high incidence of asthma, allergies, ear infections, and developmental disorders. I started polling parents and asking, “When you were a kid, did you know anyone that had asthma? Did you ever have an ear infection? Did you know anyone who was allergic to peanuts?” and other questions like this. More often than not, the answers are No, never and never. It just makes we wonder if something is going on with our kids immune systems.

When I think about some of the things that seem different about kids growing up today compared with thirty years ago the following comes to mind:

1.We would be outdoors most of the day, usually unsupervised, playing in dirt, mud, puddles and grass. Now kids just don’t spend the whole day outside, and when they are outside we are watching and usually stop them from doing lots of things.
2. Everybody drank tap water.
3. We went swimming in oceans, lakes, rivers and creeks and public pools with God knows what impurities and toxins were in it.
4. We didn’t have antibacterial soap, hand cleansers and were not obsessed with cleaning our hands.
5. We didn’t take something for a fever unless it was over 102 degrees.
6. We did not take as many antibiotics.
7 .We ate more fresh food.
8. We exercised more (Sometimes by force! In the summer, my parents would literally “lock us out” of the house when they thought we were lying around too much!) We rode our bikes everywhere. Now we won’t let our kids ride anywhere where we “can’t see them”. What is the point of the bike?

I could keep going but I think you get the point. Now the disclaimers: I am not a doctor. I know these are different times. I am not saying that anyone is doing the wrong thing.

I am just making some observations and wondering if our obsession with protecting our kids from all the world’s dangers may have led to some unintended consequences.