My Seven Year Itch | Inspired Bites

My Seven Year Itch | Inspired Bites

by Robyn O'Brien  

It is seven years ago today that my life changed over a plate of scrambled eggs.

As my daughter’s face swelled shut, I didn’t want to witness what I saw that morning, to do the work that had to be done, to find the courage that would be needed.

In all candor, seven years ago, as all of this was hitting, there was a deep yearning to somehow go back to the simplicity that we had known before that breakfast.
But that would never happen.

I couldn’t unlearn what I went on to learn or forget what I had seen.

And as I watched her struggle to breathe that morning, my life forever changed.

What I unearthed that day – that the number of children with the peanut allergy had doubled from 1997-2002, that food allergies had become so pervasive in preschool children – was the beginning of a much greater story.

As I learned about food allergies, I learned more than I could have imagined.

Today, too many Americans have allergies or asthma.   Autism now affects 1 in 54 boys in our country, while in other countries, its lack of prevalence means that the numbers aren’t even tabulated.  And while the United States only represents 5% of the world’s population, 90% of the world’s ADHD prescriptions are written for our children. But it’s not just the children who are struggling under these conditions,  41% of us are expected to get cancer in our lifetimes, while 1 in 2 minority children are expected to be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood.   The Centers for Disease Control now reports that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15.

Our children have earned the title “Generation Rx” and “Generation XL” due to their escalating rates of obesity and these other conditions...