Think you have food alergies? You probably don't.

As someone who legitimately cannot eat anything with gluten (I have Celiac's Disease), I cannot imagine forcing your kids to give up foods unless it was absolutely necessary. Although my quality of life is better now than it was before I was diagnosed (I was dying of intestinal failure), it's certainly not what it was before the onset of Celiac's Disease.

Killfile, I agree. The second the kid has a bout of diarrhea, he suddenly has allergies to wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, shellfish, peanuts, sugar, dyes, and God knows what all else. Sometimes you just get diarrhea. It happens. It doesn't mean that you're suddenly allergic to everything. I see parents posting on various health boards, and I'm just stunned at how many of them have kids with multiple food allergies, and the very first thing they ask about if the kid has a symptom of something is, "Could he be allergic to ____? He's already allergic to [insert five food ingredients here]."

It pisses me off because it makes a mockery of people who have actual life-threatening or limiting allergies. I've also noticed that almost all of these people are ones who don't believe in doctors (the allergies are never formally diagnosed) and want to self-diagnose everything. They're big on putting various labels on their kids, too, so allergies make the list bigger.

Like I said, my rant is in no way directed at people who have actual food allergies. I had a severe lactose allergy when I was little (thankfully, I grew out of it in my early teens), and it was a pain for my mother to have to comb over every single thing we bought to make sure it had no dairy ingredients in it. I also hated not being able to have ice cream and cheese, both of which I love now. Why someone would do this when they don't have to is beyond me. Maybe it gives the "parents" something to do?

Why yes, I hate helicopter parents. Why do you ask?

It's about control. So many of these parents are trying to fill the voids in their own lives by micro-managing their children--it makes them feel important and useful.

I have honest-to-God Celiac's Disease. But my doctor--himself a Celiac--reports that most people with "Celiac's Disease" don't have the immunological condition at all--they have what they self-diagnose as "gluten sensitivity." When I eat gluten, my immune system considers the protein to be a dangerous pathogen and tries to kill it, destroying my intestines in the process. I have to eat a strictly gluten free diet. But I don't have a choice.

And--as a side note--if your kid has digestive upset, it's far more likely to be a mild case of food poisoning than an allergy. But god forbid we not jump to the irrational conclusion that allows us to go completely apoplectic.