A Compromised Generation The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America's Children
Author Beth Lambert visited GreenGourmetToGo recently and shared a fascinating overview of her recent book, A Compromised Generation. She was kind enough to share her presentation with me to post on the website. It gives a great overview of the main aspects of her book and it's worth a few minutes to take a look.
I captured a few points that alarmed me:
Evidence of an epidemic: Today, one in 91 children has autism (1 in 57 boys). When this book was published earlier this year, the number was 1 in 150. Fifteen years ago, the number was 1 in 10,000. 1 in 8 children has asthma . 1 in 10 children has ADHD 1 in 80 children has celiac disease 1 in 5 children has allergic eczema 1 in 12 children under 4 has “true” food allergies (many more have food sensitivities/reactions) 1 in 30 children has pediatric depression 1 in 2 to 3 children has hay fever/environmental allergies
You’re probably thinking the same thing we did the night Beth spoke with us...aren’t we just getting better at diagnosing these things? Beth acknowledged that this may account for a certain percentage of the increase in these numbers, the reality is that there are in fact, more children who are chronically ill today. And these are just the ones that can be diagnosed with a “label”.
There are millions of others who are confounding parents and doctors alike. They have symptoms which appear to be random...unrelated...but are all too common today. Symptoms that are NOT normal when exhibited chronically or persistently are: loose stools/diarrhea, chronic ear infections, sinus infections, urinary tract infections,constipation/going several days without a bowel movement, red cheeks/ears after eating, self‐limiting feeding (e.g., only eating a few white foods), excessive tantruming/defiance, chronic mouth breathing/swollen glands, delays in walking/talking/crawling, obsessive compulsive behaviors/repetitive behaviors/aggressive behaviors, eczema, skin rashes, sensory issues: sensitivity/aversion to light, sound, textures.
The conclusion that is explored in this book is that these symptoms are signs all signs of dysfunction of the immune system and/or gastrointestinal system. Did you know that 70% of our immune system is located in the gastrointestinal system...and did you know that there are key things that impact this system every day that most of us just don’t think about? See the presentation.
One of the biggest take-aways for me was her parting message which was essentially - now that you’ve heard this, now that you are aware - tell someone, tell anyone and help get the word out there virally because not enough people are aware. I’m lucky enough to meet and talk to people all day long, and to be able to reach them in person, on email and through my website. Even if you don’t have young children, it’s worth learning a little bit about what is happening to them and to us as a result of our environment, our practices and diets. Maybe there’s someone you will want to tell after reading this.
