Daughter restricted eating and fear of choking

[JunesBalloon]

I have major concerns over my DDs eating habits. She is 9. She has always been very slim but her eating has got so disordered and she is losing weight now.

We seem to be going round in circles with it. She has always been a slow eater and I don't have an issue with that but she is saying she is full after a few mouthfuls every night. Now she is saying that after watching Mrs Doubtfire she is scared of choking and that's the reason she is slow. Now it's a sore throat. She will happily eat cakes, chocolate etc while on the go but sit down to lunch/dinner as a family and the problems start. I can't get to the bottom of it but it also transpires that she throws her packed lunch away as all her friends eat quickly and she doesn't want to be left as the last one eating. I've tried small portions, letting her eat what she likes, ignoring etc etc but it always seems to be some excuse as to why she isn't eating. Is this a normal phase? Should I take her to the dr? I've explained about a healthy diet etc and she just gets angry with me

You could see the GP without her to get advice without causing her any anxiety

My son is exactly the same, he is coming up 11.
He has a fear of choking also and will quite happily live of snacks and chocolate, he use to be quite chubby but since he's had this phobia he's lost weight. We thought we had nipped it in the bud as he started to eat normally and gained weight again but now it's back to square one , coming home with a full packed lunch ,if I ask him how come he didn't eat his dinner he would just say because he wasn't hungry. I never thought it could be because other children eat to fast and because of the fear of choking he likes to eat slower.
Following this thread for advice as I'm worried.

When the pressure is off and she is allowed to eat at her own pace she does seem a lot better. We've had a good eating day today and just making some soup for dinner so hopefully she'll enjoy that. She seems to certainly suffer when there are others (not family) around because of everyone else's pace. I've bought whole milk and full fat Greek yogurt today which she enjoys and she can put as much butter as she likes on her bread. Baby steps I know.

I'm glad this post is helping others, it's very overwhelming

I agree with the notion that it appears to be more a phobia than an eating disorder but I guess they are also linked

DD went through this last year when she choked on holiday. She was terrified of eating for a while and I really started to worry.

I took her to the supermarket and let her pick out things she thought she’d eat. Got smoothies in, made soups and mashed potatoes. As she started to get a bit more confident, I gave her chewier foods chopped up tiny so she knew she wouldn’t choke.

The absolute best thing I did though was ask my friend who is a paramedic to talk to her. She did and reassured her that it was so so rare that she went to choking incidents etc. Have you anyone who could do that?

It took a while but it did work. The fear was massive - I think it was the first time she had a sense of mortality

As I said earlier not eating and creating the negative energy deficit is now known to load the gun for an ED, so not eating for any reason (illness for example) creates the right conditions. No eating disorder is intentional, they do creep up in plain sight whatever the original cause or motive. We all have to eat and we all need a certain amount of calories to function. If our children aren't eating for any reason we need to address it quickly.

I think I would stick to a predominately soft menu for now, just to build confidence but at the same time not make an issue of the fact that it is soft (you ultimately don’t want her to then get stuck on a soft diet). Just pick meals from your usual repertoire that happen to be soft and difficult to choke on (cottage pie, fish pie, chilli and rice, fish cakes, bean burgers, dhal and rice).