Parent-reported food allergy requiring an avoidance diet in children starting elementary school

Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of parent-reported food allergies requiring avoidance diet at early school age.

Methods: The school health nurses interviewed, by using a structured questionnaire on the required diet at school, the parents of all the 1542 children starting elementary school in a Finnish town with 210,000 inhabitants.

Results: An allergy to basic foods was found in 41 (2.7%) children: 1.5% to milk, 1.1% to eggs and 1.0% to grains. An allergy to nuts was present in 3.1% and to fruits and vegetables in 5.8%, both with known cross-sensitization to pollens. In all, 9.2% of the children reported some allergy. Milk, egg and grain allergies were associated with soy, nut and spice allergies.

Conclusion: Over 2% of the 1542 Finnish first-graders reported allergies to basic foods (milk, eggs or grains) requiring special avoidance diets at school. The figure suggests that avoidance diets started in the first years of life still unnecessarily continued.