A survey report looked at how common food or digestive allergies were among children in the United States. The study used data from 2007 and 2018, focusing on children aged 0 to 17 years. It measured the percentage of children whose parents reported their child had a food or digestive allergy in the past 12 months.
The main finding was that this reported percentage increased. In 2007, about 4.0% of children were reported to have such an allergy. By 2018, that figure had risen to 6.5%. The survey did not report on any specific safety concerns or adverse events related to these allergies.
It is important to be careful with these results. This was an observational survey, which means it only tracked reports over time. It cannot prove what caused the increase in reported allergies. Many factors, like changes in awareness or diagnosis, could play a role.
Readers should take from this that reports of childhood food allergies appear to have become more common over an 11-year span. The data provides a useful snapshot of a trend, but more research is needed to understand the reasons behind it.