Screening can save troubles

That’s unfortunate, because there are several important screening tests that children or teens may need that can help them learn, laugh and thrive.

In-depth allergy testing: For young kids with a skin allergy, it’s common to acquire more allergies during their first five years. Docs call this the Allergic March, and it often starts with a skin allergy and then is followed by an anaphylactic food allergy and a respiratory allergy.

If you have a child who struggles with multiple allergies and has symptoms related to swallowing, indigestion or stomachaches, ask your allergist to test for EoE.

Obesity screening: Children 6 and older should be screened for obesity so that they can start treatment, including nutritional and activity recommendations. This is vital, because childhood obesity affects 17 percent of U.S. kids and teens, and is a gateway condition to everything from premature diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease to asthma, depression and orthopedic problems.

Now a study published in Lancet Public Health has found that the incidence of six obesityrelated cancers has increased in young adults in the past 20 years as more children grow up obese. Millennials have about double the risk of those cancers compared with baby boomers at the same age.

Mental health/depression screening: 11 % of kids age 12 to 17 report having had at least one major depressive episode in the past year! Among kids as young as 8-15, 2% of boys and 4% of girls report they’ve had a major depressive episode. Based on the 2017 Youth Risk Behaviors Survey, 7.4% of youth in grades nine through 12 reported that they had made at least one suicide attempt in the past 12 months.

That’s led the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to recommend that all kids 12 and older be screened for depression, and those younger on a case by case basis.