In the past few years, food allergies (especially in kids) has become a lot more common. Most likely, there is a kid with some level of food allergy in almost every classroom. However, people still do not grasp the seriousness that allergies pose and instead treats them as an inconvenience instead of a possibly fatal condition.
As the older sister of a ten-year-old with a very severe peanut allergy, I have witnessed the toxic attitude towards allergies by outsiders first hand. My mother is almost constantly arguing with school moms about keeping peanuts away from my brother. Some parents are extremely considerate, but there are always those few that have the mentality of, “Well, can’t he just not eat it? Why should this affect my kid?”. And perhaps in some cases that would be enough, but even being in the same room as a peanut or peanut product poses a threat to my brother.
There are varying levels of allergies. I, personally, deal with a type of allergy to milk in which I get extremely sick for a few days if I eat it, but it’s not life-threatening. And I can be around it, I just cannot consume it. But if someone eats something that came in contact with peanuts, and touches something, then my brother touches it and touches his mouth, that is enough to send him into anaphylactic shock. It’s absolutely terrifying for him and my family, and people’s attitudes towards allergies do not help at all.
People need to try harder to understand a person’s allergy before they start complaining about it. Is letting your kid bring a peanut butter sandwich truly worth the hospitalization of another child because their throat is closing up? And this mentality in parents will only spread to their children as well. I’ve seen many times someone attempt to eat something, and a person asks them not too because they’re allergic to something in it. A lot of times, that person groans and makes a big deal about the trouble of not being able to eat what they wanted. In middle school, a girl smeared peanut butter on the face of a girl with a peanut allergy. Luckily, her allergy was not life-threatening, but it still made her sick and caused her to break out in hives.
Allergies are not a joke. They are a very serious medical condition that needs to be taken seriously, especially by those don’t have to deal with food allergies. It is a very real threat in the lives of people with food allergies and their families. My mom has to constantly research foods we get on the regular to make sure they do not change their manufacturing process or ingredients. It’s infuriating that some people can treat allergies so flippantly or as if it’s bothersome to their lives, when they aren’t the ones who have to worry about the fatal threat that food can cause. When you have a family-member rushed to the hospital, especially one who is only a small child, it feels like a punch in the gut to have people complain that their allergy is a problem to them.
With the growth of food allergies in kids and schools, it is dire that people become educated about food allergies and the specific allergies of people and children in their lives, whether it be a family member, a classmate, or the friend of your child. People should be doing all that they can to protect these kids so that they don’t have to be scared going into school on a daily basis. Food allergy kids deserve to feel as safe as all the other kids as well.
