Whether it’s peanuts, pollen or wheat, allergies are everywhere in the United States. But what exactly is an allergy? According to Mayo Clinic, “allergies occur when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance — such as pollen, bee venom or pet dander — that doesn't cause a reaction in most people”. Given that allergies are due to foreign substances, it seems reasonable for the list of allergies in the U.S. to be so high. But it’s not just the list of allergy types that is high; the allergic rate in the U.S. is high as well.

According to the 2013 Time magazine article, “Why Children Born outside United States Have Lower Rates of Allergies,” children born in the U.S. were more likely to become allergic than children who were born in other countries, as“20% of foreign-born kids developed allergic diseases compared with 34% of the American-born children. The prevalence of asthma was even lower, with those born outside of the country 47% less likely to develop the condition than those born in the U.S.” Causing people to wonder, does the location of one’s birth affect their chances of becoming allergic?

And the simple answer is yes.

One theory, called the “hygiene hypothesis,” claims that improved sanitary conditions and the fresh, clean, unpolluted environment contributes the high allergic rate. Because the environment is better as compared to other countries, the human body tries to find unwelcomed and unclean things to react to in order to train the body system into recognizing and reacting to irritants. But since there aren’t many real irritants, the body mistakes everyday, ordinary items for irritants. So ironically, growing up in a less clean environment would make the body have less allergies.

So are allergies a bad thing? Sure, they can be annoying, but at least they signal a clean environment!