Rickets on the rise
Victorian England was not kind to children. With families fleeing country farms to cramped cities, children no longer worked and played in the fresh air of the English fields. Instead, they choked in mines and factories. Social problems arose from these unnatural conditions. And so did diseases.
One of the most infamous of these was rickets. Forced to work from dawn to dusk inside mines, mills or factories, children had no exposure to sunlight. Rickets is a disease brought on by lack of vitamin D and causes children to develop bowlegs and fragile bones.
The best source of vitamin D is sunlight. In Victorian England, smog-filled cities and days of indoor labor caused children to develop rickets. Once children were free to spend more time in the sun, and were fed better diets, the disease quickly disappeared.
Yet, today, rickets is once more becoming a problem. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Prof. Simon Pearce and Dr. Tim Cheetham say “nutritional rickets has made a surprising resurgence in many parts of the world.”
“Recent reports have not only come from temperate regions with limited sunshine such as Canada, New Zealand, the UK and usa, but also from sunnier climates such as Australia, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
“Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air,” said Pearce. “This means their vitamin D levels are worse than in previous years.”
Half of adults in Britain have a vitamin D deficiency in winter. One in six have a severe deficiency. Researchers say the trend is probably the same in other industrial countries.
Many children from the Victorian era suffered from rickets because their parents simply couldn’t afford to provide a proper diet and a balanced life. Now, children suffer because their parents can’t be bothered to ensure that balance.
Letting a child do and eat whatever he wants is child abuse. Results like this show that letting a child spend his life in front of a computer can destroy his mind and body just as easily as forcing him to work down a mine.
Children need attention, guidance and direction from their parents. They need love. As the proverb says, “A child left to himself brings his mother to shame.” For more, read this article.
