Did you know that May 12-18 of this year is Food Allergy Awareness week? Well I did! This post may be a couple days late from the kick off at the beginning of the week but is no less important. Let me lay some food allergy stats our there for you because it really is astounding. This all come courtesy for fare.org.

-About 8% of children, which is about 6 million kids, are living with food allergies. Most of them are young children.

-Boys are more likely to develop food allergies than girls.

-Allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, fish, or shellfish are generally lifelong allergies.

-From a study that was conducted in 2008, the CDC found the food allergies rose by 18% from the years of 1997-2007. And peanut allergies have tripled in that time frame as well.

-Every 3 minutes a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency department. This makes about 200,000 visits a year. Every 6 minutes that reaction is anaphylaxis.

-Teens and young adults with food allergies are more likely to die from fatal food induced anaphylaxis.

-If an individual has asthma, may have an increased chance of a severe or fatal food allergy reaction.

Crazy right? Until I started looking into it, I never realized all the people who had food allergies. And it isn’t just a kids problem. Plenty of adults have food allergies as well. Since it is awareness week, I have a food allergy themed giveaway coming up tomorrow but until then, if you want to do something or help some way, be sure to check out FARE.Org. You can donate or become more involved in helping fund research and awareness for food allergies!