Environment can't modify a gene directly but environment has a large impact on the genes that are passed down the generations. Over the past few decades we have seen many new animal health technologies yet cattle haven't been getting healthier because unfit animals are no longer eliminating themselves from the gene pool.
I disagree . Identical twins are less and less similar genetically as they age.
I hear you... but anything we see in kids recently, to my mind, is the medical community trying to make money by coming up with new "conditions" to sell drugs and control. I started to be concerned before my kids were born when I found out that the local schools in Arkansas were drugging boys for normal behaviors. One class of first graders had 17 of 18 boys on Ritalin before the year was ended. Behavior control through drugs is what we got when schools were refused physical discipline as a technique to teach and control behavior. My own son was diagnosed with ADHD and there was no way in hell he was hyperactive.
That's a cheap shot when we had tons of leaded gasoline, lead pipes, etc for the last 100 years
maybe it's me but this rise of ADD, ADDHD, and a lot of other disorders seem to have come from environmental changes that are becoming part of daily life and so go un-noticed. Lack of windows in new schools, with the energy savings explanation but removes a lot of visual stimulation, lack of recess for younger kids and removal of gym classes for older kids resulting in little to no exercise and lack of physical interaction and learning to work as a team, a proliferation of junk food full of preservatives and chemical additives because 2 income families find it easier than cooking and washing dishes despite increasing allergies and reactions, using electronics as a babysitter from the time a child is able to function and giving 2 and 3 year olds video stimulation to keep them quiet instead of reading to them and playing with them thereby inhibiting communication skills development and no responsibility for kids such as even menial chores because the kids get upset when you take the electronic stimulation away and make them do something. Just go to a restaurant and look at a family with kids eating and see how many kids are hooked onto a phone and not talking at all, no response to an adult telling them thanks for coming in. I think today's way of raising the kids is causing enormous problems and the cause of 15-25% of our kids now being on mind altering and mood swing drugs to "help" them.
I'll just say one thing beyond agreeing and appreciating your post... The school lunch thing is mystifying. I don't see school lunches as a responsibility for the school to get kids to eat by giving them junk food. I rather see it as a responsibility to give kids the healthy meals they are not getting at home. Some kids won't eat what is put in fron of them, but most will eventually if they have no other options. Take out the candy and soda machines and feed the kids good food. School is a place to learn.
