General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm going to make the Covid / Flu comparison... [View all]smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I was talking with some friends a few weeks ago about this. We were wondering if the reason that children today have so many allergies to so many different things (peanuts, eggs, dairy, seafood, strawberries, pets, etc...) is because their environments are so protected and sterilized.
I have noticed that my nieces and nephews and a lot of their friends have more than their fair share of allergies. It just seems kind of commonplace these days.
When I was growing up, hardly anyone had any allergies. It was extremely rare. Then again, we would spend our days playing outside in the dirt, in streams/ponds and climbing trees all day. We'd eat wild berries and stick all kinds of things in our mouths. In short, we were probably just exposed to a lot more "germs" than today's children are.
I don't know for sure, but I almost think that kind of exposure made us more resistant to allergens and viruses as we were growing up.