I mean death from accidents may have declined, but childhood (and adult) mental illness is prevalent at heretofore unknown levels, and not just because of an awakening to diagnosis. So 10 children are alive but 100,000 are anxious, depressed, etc. Was it worth it?
One other theory put forward by Tim Noakes is that the US dietary guidelines that was introduced in 1977 which recommended to eat lots of carbohydrates is responsible for the huge increase in obesity and mental illnesses that exploded in the 80s.
A high carbohydrate diet was never scientifically proven or tested. One guy (Ancel Keys) had a theory, cherry picked some countries that showed a very small correlation. But political things were afoot in America and Nixon went with his plan and enacted the US diet regulations in 1977 that promoted grains which helped US farmers especially the corn industry. The other countries soon adopted it since US leads the way.
But if you look at the graph of when diseases like obesity, mental illness, depression, heart disease really explodes from 1980s, right when the dietary guidelines are taken up.
Of course correlation doesn't equal causation (which is one of the flaws in the Ancel study). But it's definitely something we should do studies on.
As someone with an Adult ADHD diagnosis, this has definitely been my experience. Adults weren't even being diagnosed with ADHD when I was a child and it was never brought up when I showed the signs in school. Now I'm receiving treatment and thankful for it, and my kids will be screened.
That's not to say the rate of mental illness is going up or down or staying the same. But measuring the per capita diagnosis rate won't tell you anything about that.
> As someone with an Adult ADHD diagnosis, this has definitely been my experience. Adults weren't even being diagnosed with ADHD when I was a child and it was never brought up when I showed the signs in school. Now I'm receiving treatment and thankful for it, and my kids will be screened.
Same here in all respects.
> But measuring the per capita diagnosis rate won't tell you anything about that.
I believe that some of the increase in diagnosis rates is because of increasing diagnosis in historically under-diagnosed groups, especially in the US where access to healthcare hasn't been available to everyone.
