Do kids today get all the same colds, flues, sore throats, etc. that we got as a child?
I want to compare the 60s, which is after vaccinations and antibiotics were available, and we weren’t getting polio and small pox any more, to present day.
We work so hard at stopping the “spread” of germs, you’d think today’s kids would never get sick. We constantly wash our hands, we talk about germs all the time, we cover surfaces we never covered before, we prepackage straws, we don’t use cloth drying towels in public bathrooms….the list goes on and on and on. But the kid today still get sick with all the same stuff we got sick with in the 60s. Are we just wasting our time and emotional energy?
I think it’s important to be reasonably clean, and it’s very important to handle food properly, but I think we go overboard. If a piece of food falls off of your plate onto the table at a restaurant, people would look at you horrified if you picked it up and ate it.
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There are no vaccines for colds and strep, and in spite of all of our cleaning and worrying, and germ killing, the kids still get sick. So are we just wasting our time going so germ crazy?
In some cases they might be worse with the increase of antibiotic resistant strains of sickness bugs.
I agree. And with obesity on the rise, our overall health is deteriorating.
I think it would be a mistake to think that kids today get the same diseases that we did. It’s like you walking into a Buick dealership today and expecting to find a shiny new 62 Skylark on the showroom floor. If you sent today’s kindergartener with a cold back to a1962 classroom, the risks are high that the resulting infections would be super versions of the “common cold”. We forget that it is a constant arms race, the battle between infection and resistance. Think of the implications that might have for time travel.
I disagree that it would a “super version” of the common cold. It’s a virus, not a bacteria that causes colds. After an infection you are then immune to that particular virus…but there are more than 200 cold viruses out there! But only, like, 40 of them are the most common ones. It’s the reason kids get sick all the time, and older people almost never get colds any more. They are pretty much unchanged throughout history.
They still get pink eye, they still get strep throat. Why aren’t we successful in stopping them from infecting the kids?
Strep throat is caused by bacteria. Pink eye can be from a virus or bacteria.
Bacteria have been around before man, before animals, before anything else. Bacteria are not going away any time soon.
I know what causes strep. Apparently, in spite of all.our hand wringing and cleaning and sanitizing, we can never keep bacteria and viruses away from the kids.
@Dutchess_lll Oh, here we are again. Blaming obesity for all the things.
It would be interesting to see the actual statistics. I tried to google a little and couldn’t find anything.
More children are in group settings at younger ages than 50 plus years ago. Back in the day more moms were at home, and so now more children are in day care or preschool of some sort. My guess is there are even more colds at younger ages (1–5) but just a guess.
I firmly believe washing hands helps, and staying away from sick people helps. My dad is finally a believer too. He’s shocked he has gotten through the winter so far without getting sick, and my mom did have a cold while they were staying with me. Neither my dad not I caught it, and we did shun her to some extent, and I wiped the kitchen handles with anti-germ wipes the first 48 hours. Typically, I don’t use antibacterial chemicals, but I do when I know someone is sick. It’s possible we were both immune already though. Usually, my dad catches every cold that comes down the pike. He became a believer in being obnoxiously careful this time.
@Dutchess_lll: If this is going to be a case where you have a stance and you argue with anyone who disagrees with your stance, then there’s no use in anybody else responding.
@jca2, With the exception of plagues and the diseases cured by the introduction of vaccines, our kids get just as sick as we did and all the hand washing and sanitizing in the world doesn’t seem to be making a single bit of difference, does it? That’s the question.
Now you may want to jump in here and compare the average American home with a hovel in Africa for the cleanliness issue, but that will be off track, too.
Do you have an answer, or is just digging in and attacking the question your answer?
You guys always make it way more complicated than it needs to be.
@Dutchess_III: I“ve given several answers with backup links, to this question and the other one you posted the other day that was similar.
You discount the answers and you have your own stance that you don’t deviate from. That’s fine but don’t say I haven’t answered.
Because your links about vaccinations aren’t relevant to the question. The question is about common illnesses, like colds or the flu not polio or diphtheria or measles or mumps.
@Dutchess_III: OK. My apologies. Maybe someone else can provide something more relevant.
Two points:
1) All the hand-washing in the world doesn’t do much for the average young child – they have toys or random objects right in their mouths half the time. They crawl on the floor. They literally wash their hands, touch the toilet seat, and then suck their thumbs. Also, even adults often do not wash their hands long enough to remove significant amounts of pathogens. The CDC recommends 20 seconds, and says that wet hands are more likely to “pick up” fresh germs. I don’t know about you, but I rarely see people take the time to actually dry their hands in public bathrooms.
2) As far as I understand, the laws created toward this purpose are not supposed to protect citizens against random illnesses. Rather, in the case of serious infectious diseases, developed countries with strong laws in place will suffer fewer deaths. Cholera is alive and kicking in many parts of the world. Because there are laws to protect you while eating at restaurants, you’re unlikely to come in contact with it in the U.S.
Here’s an article on the flu specifically that you might find interesting.
I agree with you that their just isn’t much that we can really do to prevent kids from getting regular illnesses. Not only can we not sterilize everything, the littlest ones haven’t developed immunities yet.
That was an interesting article on the flu. I had no idea there was a flu epidemic in 1968. I would have been 10 and that’s probably where I got my dose of the flu from. God I was sick for about 5 days! I got a funky 24 hour version of it from my boyfriend in 1974. He was at my house and started feeling so sick that I asked Mom to give him a ride home. We always walked everywhere we went.
After she dropped him off she said, “You watch. In 24 hours you’ll get sick too.” And I did. It lasted 24 hours, too.
Years later my daughter came down with a 24 hour flu.
My son went down the next day. We have a bathroom upstairs. It can be accessed from the hall or from my daughter’s bedroom. Obviously it was HER bathroom. Poor Chris got so exhausted from vomiting he just laid down on the bathroom floor. Corrie saw that and felt so sorry for him she said, “Oh. Poor Chris. He can sleep on my bathroom floor if he wants!” She knew what he was going through.
Then my oldest daughter went downstayed well,thank goodness. Somebody had to nurse those children.
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