Nut Bans? Kinda Nuts

I've long suspected that paranoia about nuts and nut allergies in children isn't particularly well-founded. (Very few types of paranoia are.) This report from Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times only confirms my view. "The 'policy of avoidance,'" she writes, "means that fewer children are being exposed to nuts, likely increasing their risk for developing an allergy. A 2008 study in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of 10,000 British children found that early exposure to peanuts lowers risk of allergy, rather than increasing it."

I find this sort of thinking sadly typical of today's parents of young children, whose parenting style seems to be marked by narrow-mindedness and overprotective tendencies. Children, while vulnerable, are not porcelain dolls.