[walter_bishop]

They would first have to define what exactly they mean by 'mental illness' and children getting diagnosed with ADHD has more to do with the pharmaceutical industry selling more drugs than any valid evidence that ADHD actually exists.

[eivarv]

Are you implying that ADHD is not a real condition?

If so, what makes you think this is the case?

[Mz]

When my dad grew up on a farm, the world was slower and quieter. When I moved back home during my divorce with my two teenaged sons, my parents lived on the edge of town with no cell phones or computers and you could hear a pin drop in their house at night. No one called them ADHD or accused them of suffering from some disorder or suggested their odd lifestyle was accommodation for some condition where they can't cope with distractions. They were just old.

The world has changed and sped up and kids who don't cope with life these days get all kinds of labels. For all we know, they would be fine if they were growing up on a quiet farm with a more organic pace of life and disconnected from our many gadgets and what not -- as was the norm for everyone on the planet not too many decades ago.

If you look at history, each era has some widespread "mental health" issue. Modern peoples consider many of these labels bogus. For example, at one time women were believed to suffer a condition known as "Hysteria" which was treatable with medically induced hysterical paroxysms -- aka orgasms: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hy...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/female-hysteria_n_4...

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/05/hysteria-sex-toy-hi...

You would be well advised to be skeptical of extremely widespread cases of "mental disease" found to be prevalent in a particular generation during a particular time span. In another generation, they are likely to have a different explanation and ADHD may well be a term that only occurs in history books and articles mocking the concept.

[eivarv]

I get what you mean, but as far as I can see your first two paragraphs only amount to conjecture. I don't see how you can draw any conclusions about ADHD from that.

I do know of these cases, of course, but the field of mental illness is very much different today than what it was in the days of "Hyesteria" - both with regards to diagnostics, and to research. For instance, there are well known structural and functional abnormalities associated with certain mental illnesses - which would seem to imply that the current categorizations aren't completely off.

While you may be right in the technical sense that future research can make our current understanding obsolete, I don't think there's any doubt that some people suffer as a consequence of what is currently conceptualised as a behavioural disorder called ADHD.

[Mz]

Saying future generations will see it differently does not deny that people are genuinely suffering currently. I have two special needs sons. Their issues have benefited tremendously from dietary changes, among other things.

[walter_bishop]

"ADHD and Other Sins of Our Children"

http://simonsobo.com/adhd-and-other-sins-of-our-children