Food Allergies and Anxiety

You might have many questions when it is first discovered that your child has food allergies. You might wonder exactly what the diagnosis means, and what the risks are if your child is exposed to the food. You might wonder about medication: can you get help to pay for it? And then there’s travel. Is it even safe to travel? What kind of precautions does your family need to take to protect your child?

Even after learning about the diagnosis and getting answers to those initial questions, families may have questions that come up on a regular basis, like:

• Where are we grocery shopping?
• What restaurants are safe?
• How much are alternative ingredients going to cost?
• How do I trust this food allergy label?
• What does “may contain” mean?
• What’s my child’s risk of having anaphylaxis?
• Can I trust the school staff to recognize symptoms of an allergic reaction?
• Can I trust other parents, kids, servers, chefs, or anyone who comes into contact with my child?

What Is Food Allergy Anxiety?

Families with food allergies often must consider safety, since food is such a big part of our society. Because of this, children and their parents might experience anxiety, especially in places such as school, birthday parties, restaurants, sleepovers, and when traveling. (Anxiety is a mental and physical reaction to something our brain perceives as a threat.)

A little anxiety can be helpful for managing a food allergy, because it can help people keep themselves safe (for example, checking labels and asking about allergies at restaurants). Sometimes, this anxiety can grow, and people may start to avoid places or activities that are actually safe.

How Do I Know if My Child/Family Is Experiencing Food Allergy Anxiety?

Although anxiety can show up in different ways for different people, a few signs to look for in your child/family include:

• Avoids attending activities that are typical for children to attend, such as school, birthday parties, or vacations.
• Checks food labels or ingredients more than 1-2 times to feel reassured that the food is safe.
• Asks many times about the safety of foods and seeks a lot of reassurance.
• Overly limits the foods that are eaten, even avoiding non-allergic foods.
• Engages in extra safety measures, including excessive handwashing or avoiding clean dishes that may once have had the food allergy on it.

What Can We Do About It?

Talking to your medical providers is an important first step. All of the questions above are helpful to ask during the office visit. This can help frame how your family will live life with a food allergy diagnosis. These questions should be revisited as you go through different chapters in your child’s life. The risk of an accidental exposure changes and can be very different from daycare to kindergarten to middle school to young adulthood.

Although the day-to-day to aspect of living with a food allergy can be hard, kids and families with food allergies can and should live regular, fun lives! Parents’ and medical providers’ goals are centered around keeping kids safe, while also ensuring kids with food allergies get to do all of the same things other kids do.

Also, your medical providers want to empower patients with the right information that is rooted in science and data, to help you make the best decisions for your families. If you hear about something in the news or on social media, please ask your provider about how it relates to you.

Once you have accurate information about how to best manage food allergies, it’s also important to learn ways to manage anxiety related to food allergies. Effective anxiety management includes noticing and challenging anxious or inaccurate thoughts about allergies and practicing being in safe, new environments that were once avoided due to fear about allergies. It includes learning ways to relax your body, too. Parents and caregivers should model calm behavior around food allergy topics and situations to help their children feel better.

If anxiety continues to get in the way of daily life, seeking behavioral health support can help the entire family with their coping skills.