Introduction

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

–Pearl S. Buck

Over the last several decades, we have become a society obsessed with children’s health, wellness and safety.  We do things with our children today that people fifty years ago would have found strange, perhaps even laughable. We measure our children’s height, weight, and head circumference every month during infancy to ensure that each child is “on track.” We use baby monitors to listen to our infants’ every peep as they sleep—and we put them all to sleep on their backs.  We protect our children from infectious diseases, including sexually transmitted diseases, through the most comprehensive vaccination program in the world.  We sanitize their surroundings.  We have stringent laws outlining which car seats or bike helmets must be worn to prevent injury.  We have developed crime-stopping protocols like “Amber Alerts” on highways and “Safe Havens” on city streets.  In many localities, parents have been arrested for leaving their children alone in a car for even a few brief moments.  Children left unattended at home afterschool were once called “latchkey,” now they are called “neglected.”  There is more anxiety today about the wellbeing of children than at any other time in American history.

Yet, somehow, for all of this concern about our children’s health and safety, we seem to be overlooking what appears to be the most widespread and potentially devastating crisis in children’s health of the modern era:  More American children are suffering from diagnosable chronic illnesses than at any other time in our history.  Asthma, autism, ADHD, allergies, juvenile diabetes, celiac disease, obesity, and many other illnesses are growing at unprecedented rates, and we do not know why.

This phenomenon is not limited to children diagnosed with particular illnesses.  Many children considered to be “healthy” or “normal” are showing signs of chronic immunological impairment and unhealthy physiological imbalances. The signs are common, everyday occurrences like runny noses, constipation, or temper tantrums.  These are easy to dismiss, as they occur in most children intermittently.  What sets these signs apart from normal childhood experiences is the fact that they are chronic, unrelenting, and persistent.  While many parents are tuned in to these signs, intuiting that there is something wrong with their children, many others dismiss these signs as harmless or inconsequential.  Sometimes it is just easier to accept our pediatrician’s most heartfelt reassurances that all is well.  But all is not well.