奇速英语

你知道食物过敏症吗？

As a first-grader, Jeremy Francoeur didn't want to go to school, and his mom didn't know why.

When she asked, he told her about a game his classmates made up called "allergen tag." Each kid pretended to be a food - an egg, a peanut or a shell fish.

"If he touched them, they would cough and say, 'OK, you're dead, you're out,'" says Jeremy's mom. That wasn't all. One classmate would sometimes took away Jeremy's sandwich. Another would throw it away. Both jokings left him hungry, since he couldn't eat the school's food. Even in middle school, Jeremy, now 14, he said he couldn't eat the food at a school event. That’s the illness called food allergy.

One in every 13 children in the U.S. has a food allergy, according to a research. That's about two students in every classroom, the organization points out. And that proportion is on the rise. "Over the last five years, we've seen many kids with food allergies, so over the next few years there will be many more children in middle school and grade school with food allergies," says Mark Holbreich,. "It's a problem that we need to be more aware of."

After his mother learned about "allergen tag," she talked to her son's teacher, who played a video about allergies in class. Afterward, Jeremy talked to her about what it feels like to have allergies “Education goes a long way," Laurel Francoeur says. "Parents, teachers, coaches and other leaders can teach kids how to face food allergies.