How can I help my dad improve his diet?

[ForTealBee]

My dad is 72, and has always had a pretty awful diet. Looking at it through 2025 eyes, it seems to me as though he is autistic, but at his age there's no point him being diagnosed. Plus, he is of a different generation.

His diet is probably 95% white carbs and red meat. He has had every test under the sun in the last 12 months, and his body is completely free of any cancer or other nasties, besides a lingering gut infection that stems from a bout of food poisoning about 4 years ago. He has been admitted to hospital, had colonoscopies, biopsies, everything, and it is this infection. He responds to antibiotics, but they don't completely rid him of the infection. His doctors do not know why, we do not know why, it's a mystery.

He will not eat anything probiotic, he won't eat natural yoghurt, he won't have Actimel etc etc., anything he does have he'll have it for a week, feel better and then stop.

The issue comes when this infection kicks off. He'll get diarrhoea for a day or two, which then puts him off his food. Then he'll get ravenously hungry, eat a lot, be sick, and not eat for another day or two. He will then weigh himself, panic that he's lost weight for "no reason" and slowly get back to eating properly. When he doesn't eat, he gets "panic attacks" - he calls them out of body experiences and he feels his blood leaving his head. It sounds like he's just going incredibly lightheaded.

He will then eat crap food again, neglect his gut health, be fine for a few months and then it'll kick off again. It's getting to the point that his IS losing more weight than he can put back on, but he isn't underweight. He's at the bottom of being overweight for his height.

He was in hospital about a year ago with this and did lose about a stone and a half in 14 days. He has put some of it back on, but not a lot.

I just want to help him. Seeing him get ill is horrible, but he doesn't seem to connect the dots between his diet and these episodes. How can I get him to finally help himself? He says he wants to put some weight and muscle back on but when I suggest a whole foods diet and lots of protein, he turns his nose up. What can I do? Do I have to watch him just go through these episodes?

Autistic with an autistic husband here. It's got be super gradual. What does he eat at the moment? It'll work better if you try and add a portion of veg to that so that there's a smaller portion of carbs and some veg on his plate rather than trying to get him to suddenly switch to "whole foods" etc. So if he currently has an oven pizza for tea, could he cut that in half and have it over two nights with a side salad or some peas or something like that?

Cold potatoes are meant to be good for gut health.

Agree with pp about adding veggies/ peas as a side.

Has he been tested for campylobacter? It’s called H pylori these days. That can cause gut issues.

Can you at least get him on a decent vitamin and mineral supplement like Forceval. He may need other things like folate, b vitamins, iron on top of that. Does he consume a lot of sugar?
It sounds like he may be getting crashes from sugar and carbs, hence feeling ravenous and dizzy. Would he take supplement drink like ensure compact? It really just tastes like milkshake.
Is it textures, tastes, colours of veg he hates? You can sneak spinach into things quite easily as long as he won't be put off by the colour.

Campylobacter is the bastard that started this all off, years ago. I suspect some of his "panic attack" is actually PTSD from him nearly dying of it.

His diet is incredibly restricted.

Breakfast is some form of sugary kids cereal, toast (warburtons plastic, sorry bread), or when he's feeling really good, bacon and eggs.

Lunch is tinned soup, ham and cheese with crackers, or some form of sandwich.

Dinner is meat, green beans and potatoes in some form - mash, chips, dauphinoise (again when he feels good). He'll have a cottage pie, a roast dinner etc., but it follows this formula.

He'll eat things like yoghurt if it's in the fridge, but not anything like natural yoghurt or kefir. It has to be the yoghurt with fruit added in, so my mum tries to make sure it's Activia

He's on iron tablets, I want to get him a multivitamin but he's against it in case it interferes with his blood pressure medication - but he's been told it's fine.

That sounds frightening. So it’s resistant to treatment?

Sauerkraut? Is that too much?

@Pinkfluffypencilcase I think that if he sorted out his gut health it would have more of a chance of going away. He had been hospitalised and put on IV antibiotics but that was only done to the point that it got rid of the diarrhoea. The thing is the antibiotics are so strong, it decimated his gut microbiome. I also don't think it helps that so much of your immune system comes from your gut. So he's in a bit of a cycle.

That’s frustrating. A friend had it for ten years (sorry) till they were tested. But I agree I think friend’s diet was full of veg.

I’ve heard of a new treatment for replenishing gut bacteria. Poo tablets from healthy guts. Bit out there.

maybe on the cold potato idea - potato cakes with left over mash? Especially as he likes his carbs.

dont know if this is possible or if your dad would listen but ask for a referral to a dietitian. I had one recently and it was v useful