conversely, healthcare professionals treating allergic reactions on an out-patient or even hospitalized basis may not report all cases. recent increases in reported cases may reflect a real change in incidence or an increased awareness on the part of healthcare professionals. social impact food fear has a significant impact on quality of life. for children with allergies, their quality of life is also affected by the actions of their peers. an increased occurrence of bullying has been observed, which can include threats or deliberate acts of forcing allergic children to contact foods that they must avoid or intentional contamination of allergen-free food. the social impacts of food allergies can carry over into adulthood. portrayal in media media portrayals of food allergy in television and film are not accurate, often used for comedic effect or underplaying the potential severity of an allergic reaction. these tropes misinform the public and also contribute to how entertainment media will continue to wrongly portray food allergies in the future. types of tropes: 1) characters have food allergies, providing a weakness that can be used to sabotage them. in the movie parasite a housekeeper is displaced by taking advantage of her peach allergy. in the animated film peter rabbit, the farm owner is attacked by being pelted with blackberries, causing an anaphylactic reaction requiring emergency treatment with epinephrine. after many public protests, sony pictures and the peter rabbit director apologized for making light of food allergies. 2) food allergy is used for comedic effect, such as in the movies hitch and in television, kelso's egg allergy in that '70s show 3) food allergies may be incorporated into characters who are also portrayed as annoying, weak and oversensitive, which can be taken as implying that their allergies are either not real or not potentially severe. in season 1, episode 16 of the big bang theory howard wolowitz deliberately consumes a peanut-containing food bar (and has a serious reaction) just to delay leonard from returning to his apartment where a surprise birthday party is being arranged. 4) any of these portrayals may underplay the potential severity of food allergy, some showing that benadryl treatment is sufficient. viewing of humorous portrayals of food allergies has been shown to have a negative effect on related health policy support due to low perceived seriousness. research several theories have been suggested to explain why certain individuals develop allergic sensitization instead of oral tolerance to food allergens. one such theory is the dual allergen hypothesis, which states that ingesting food allergens early on promotes oral tolerance while skin exposure leads to sensitization. instead of oral ingestion, skin barrier disruption in conditions like eczema, for instance, was suggested to cause allergic sensitization in animal and human infants. inhalation was recently proposed to be an additional sensitization route in the dual allergen hypothesis. another theory is the barrier regulation hypothesis, describing the role of commensal bacteria in preventing the development of food allergy by maintaining integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier. environmental and lifestyle factors, such as early life nutrition and antibiotic treatment, may contribute to food allergy prevalence by affecting gut microbial composition, and thus, intestinal immune homeostasis in infants and young children. a number of desensitization techniques are being studied. areas of research include anti-ige antibody (omalizumab), specific oral tolerance induction (also known as oral immunotherapy), and sublingual immunotherapy. the benefits of allergen immunotherapy for food allergies is unclear, thus is not recommended as of 2015. there is research on the effects of increasing intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids during pregnancy, lactation, via infant formula and in early childhood on the subsequent risk of developing food allergies during infancy and childhood. from two reviews, maternal intake of omega-3, long-chain fatty acids during pregnancy appeared to reduce the risks of medically diagnosed ige-mediated allergy, eczema and food allergy per parental reporting in the first 12 months of life, but the effects were not all sustained past 12 months. the reviews characterized the literature's evidence as inconsistent and limited. results when breastfeeding mothers were consuming a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids were inconclusive. for infants, supplementing their diet with oils high in polyunsaturated fatty acids did not affect the risks of food allergies, eczema or asthma either as infants or into childhood. there is research on probiotics, prebiotics and the combination of the two (synbiotics) as a means of treating or preventing infant and child allergies. from reviews, there appears to be a treatment benefit for eczema, but not asthma, wheezing or rhinoconjunctivitis. the evidence was not consistent for preventing food allergies and this approach cannot yet be recommended. the food standards agency, in the united kingdom, are in charge of funding research into food allergies and intolerance. since their founding in 1994 they have funded over 45 studies. in 2005 europe created europrevall, a multi-country project dedicated to research involving allergies.