It could explain part of the increase, but I truly believe a high number of diagnoses (not all, of course) are a result of hyper-awareness.  The best way I can describe it, is that allergies and colds often have the same symptoms. Yet, if you go to the doctor to treat a cold and he says you just have allergies and take a Claritin, that doesn’t mean that “colds don’t exist.” What it should mean to the patient, is “Thank God it wasn’t actually a cold!” A lot of people will think this way as long as it’s colds vs allergies, or something else relatively benign, but when you delve into autism or ADHD, folks often go bananas. In other words, I believe “condishuns” is not specific to fatlogic alone. I live in a very rural, poor and uneducated community. Most people would rather do methamphetamine than mathematics, and TV personalities like Honey Boo Boo and Mama June are considered the equivalent of Miss America. A startlingly high number of parents simply can’t be asked to nurture their children. They don’t hug them, communicate with them, play with them or sing their ABCs together. They just throw some dollar store stacking cups at their babies and sit on the sofa texting their friends and uploading filtered selfies to Facebook. By the time the kid turns 3 or 4, they don’t understand why the kid won’t talk or is easily frustrated. Plus, they’re stacking cups all day. Google those symptoms and you’ll easily come to an autism conclusion. Well, that’s good because if it’s autism, it’s “not your fault.” It has nothing to do with the fact that you yourself haven’t nurtured your child and don’t plan on starting it any time soon.  Of course the parents will tell the pediatrician that everything up until now has been normal, that they communicate/play with the child several hours every day. Very few doctors would call the bluff. Without hiring a private investigator and installing a nanny cam in the home, how would they know for sure it was a lie? At any rate, just like fatlogic, as soon as a parent receives a diagnosis of “condishun,” they’re off the hook for the rest of the kids life, basically. No one will ever call the bluff, and folks like me are accused of not believing it exists. Hell, of course I know it exists - just the same as I know PCOS, “underactive thyroid” and eating disorders exists - but is it not just as possible that misdiagnosis due to hyperawareness also exists? In the area I live in, ADD used to be the “thing” to have. When they added the H, parents gravitated toward wanting that diagnosis. When autism awareness blew up, they switched again. But never once in my rural, poor and uneducated community did anyone ever suggest “I think your son could benefit from some one-on-one time” did the parents respond “That just might work! Thank God it wasn’t autism!” They will defend that diagnosis, even if it’s self-diagnosed, until they draw their last breath.