What causes under eye circles?

[Fuzzi Fannies Creations]

My 2 year old is beginning to look 40... what causes these darkish under eye circle like???? Diet?? Sleep????

[Mel]

Jonah gets him when he's dehydrated. We get him to drink extra water and they go away.

[TwinKristi]

Also anemia can cause circles under the eyes...

[MommaBelt]

my two year old had this today too, kinda alarming...

[urchin_grey]

Maybe sleep? DS got them really bad after he had surgery because he reacted to the anesthesia and it made him all jittery and he couldn't sleep for a couple of days. But I don't doubt that diet or dehydration could cause it too...

[worldwarcaitlin]

I constantly have really dark circles under my eyes due to my anemia.

[Timetodance]

It can also just be genetic. The appearence can just be a superficial genetic coloring thing, but we all have them in my family because we all have sinus issues.

[pinkflamingos77]

allergies can cause them too. They call them allergy shiners. I have them and so do my kids. Somedays they are bad and other days we do not notice them.

http://www.drpaul.com/library/ALLERGYSIGNS.html

[milniks7]

Yep..was just gonna post about allergy shiners...my dd had tham starting at a very young age...

[baconbitz]

Ditto on the allergy shiners. It was the first clue that my older ds had allergies (other than constant ear infections.) He's been on Zyrtec for 3 years now.