There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)

by Linda Åkeson McGurk

The highest rates of allergy and asthma are found in the English-speaking developed countries: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Today, about one in ten children in the US has asthma, a disease that kills three thousand people in the country every year, and as many as 40 percent are affected by allergies. Combined, allergic disease, including asthma, is the third-most-common chronic condition among children under eighteen years old in the US. Meanwhile, asthma and allergy remain very rare conditions in many developing countries. The changes have happened too fast to have been caused by a genetic shift in the population; instead, the culprit is likely a variety of environmental factors. Many researchers believe that smaller family sizes, increased antibiotics use, less contact with animals, more time spent indoors, and an obsession with cleanliness have all contributed to our immune systems slacking off in the past fifty years.