My daughter only eats pizza. AMA

[IThinkILikeThisLittleLight]

She has ARFID

Posting to give some insight into what life with ARFID is like

Does she show any interest in expanding her foods? I see fb reels from a little girl called Hannah I think, it’s myarfidlife.

fwiw, a friend at uni had a friend from home who he said only ate “chicken and jam”. Basically he’d eat bread and jam or chicken breast and oven chips. Nothing else. It was 25 years ago now but I wonder if he had Arfid. He went travelling in early 20s and ended up liking rice and other foods and expanding his foods. I guess it was all
under his own choice and control so maybe that helps.

Have you tried liquid vitamins? Or vitamin powder? You can mix them in yogurts or milshakes

I hope one day she'll be able to eat a fresh wood fired pizza, nothing better yum!!!

Gosh. Poor thing and poor you. I imagine other parents judge you which must be tough. Plus you must worry so much about nutrition and her social skills and social life going forward. I hope she manages to resolve it.

http://www.the-heath.co.uk/

Have a look at this link. Felix is an expert on ARFID.

My Grandson age 10 ASD/ ARFID.
Only has a few foods.
Chicken nuggets n fries ( only from Burger king) no other kind.
Bread and butter./ white cheese.
Bananas ( new just recently).
Potato smilies.
Bourbon biscuits .
That's it .
Nothing else .
He will only drink water ( Good thing).
He has tasteless vitamins put into his water.
It's very very hard work.
We hope for improvement.
Good luck.

DH has ARFID. He only eats chicken nuggets and chips & chocolate/sweets.

He only has one meal a day (sometimes) and survives off chocolate/sweets if hungry. His teeth are Hollywood perfect, he is slim, tall, looks young for his age (36) and active. I genuinely find the human body fascinating.

Will she eat any sweets/crisps type stuff?

My son has ARFID, he will eat plain cheese pizza, sausage & fries (has to be fries), dry bread, dry choco pillows cereal and quavers. Its so hard, i know I'm fairly lucky that eats more than some with it.

I'm afraid neither yogurts or milkshakes are palatable (alongside pretty much anything that resembles a sauce or flavoured drink, separately or with anything else). But I didn't realise you could get powder - that might be worth a try

My dd, 14 and autistic sounds very similar although she eats a slightly broader category of beige foods - noodles with soy sauce, pasta with mozzarella and pepperoni pizza. She also likes garlic bread, plain french bread and plain bagels. Her choices have been getting more limited recently and she is now down to Walkers salt and vinegar being the only crisps she will eat and she no longer eats brunch bars but this primary school fruit sweets (yo-yo bear type things) are back. It is exhausting and worrying.

I have ARFID tho not as severe as OP's teen - we never knew what it was called as a kid, and then it was 'selective eating disorder' and now ARFID.

I had hypnotherapy with Felix (as an adult) nearly 10 years ago and it was revelatory. I'm certainly not cured by any means and I relapsed a good portion of my progress when I fell pregnant and morning sickness made me revert back to safe foods, but I eat a much wider range of foods.

He does online videos now too which I have every intention of trying again one day to try and get back to where I was pre-pregnancy with trying new foods without fear/being sick.

She will do yes. I sort of class chocolate bread as a food because to her it is one of her main food groups so those and pizza are her meals but she will eat crisps and sweets.

No question but I just wanted to give some hope. I am autistic and had a really restricted food list as a child, I can really relate to a lot of what you've said here, including the retching in the toilet after accidentally eating the wrong thing. It started to change for me in my mid 20s and now (late 30s) there's only one food that will make me sick if I accidentally eat it. I don't want to go on about it as this is your post and not mine but I just thought it would be nice to say keep holding on to that hope as it can happen.

That's really interesting!

I'm just watching his videos now.

When she was a child, did you try withdrawing her pizza and dishing her up new foods? But pushed the pizza to one side and told her she could only eat her pizza if she tries the new food?

This is what we did with DD9 when she was little. She doesnt have ARFID but i think she would've done if i let her because she wanted chicken nuggets and chips every night

What professional help has she had?

At the same time however i wonder if ARFID is like a type of autism, especially with it lasting so long into adulthood and people with it 9/10 having autism. DD9 is not autistic.

what does a weekly shop look like for your family?
Do you ever get comments from others and how do you deal with it?

You sound like a great mum to your daughter. She's very lucky to have you.

You don’t get arfid because parents don’t withdraw the only safe foods you eat

I am very unfamiliar with arfid but the idea of refusing to eat anything available even when youre starving is just a scary idea to me I cannot imagine it

There's picky eating and then there's ARFID, someone with ARFID absolutely cannot just 'try something new' or be bribed to do so with other food. My parents tried and it was just very traumatic for me and them and probably made it worse. Of course this was the 90s so very different levels of awareness!

Is she limited as to what crisps and sweets she eats?

My child eats any form of chicken nuggets, plain jacket potatoes, some types of sausages, plain boiled potatoes, chips, one flavour of super noodles , plain noodles or white rice with soy sauce, some types of crisps, plain chicken breast (if there’s nothing else, apples, bananas, battered fish and grapes. This feels like quite a big list now I’ve read the thread. It’s really hard to eat meals outside of home though whether at a red or at someone’s house

What do you think people with ARFID ate before convenience foods were a thing?

My sibling had/has ARFID. They are now 30 something and so much better than they used to be but man alive, the stress over food growing up was next level. Their ARFID was also muddled up with some severe food allergies which in the 90s weren't really understood so sibling understandably chose to only eat a very limited list of 'safe foods' as a way to not get sick. The whole thing dominated the family and caused so much upset. Eating out was almost impossible and often resulted in one family member leaving the restaurant in tears.

OP - you have my sympathies and I hope, like for us, things do eventually improve.