Did some ND children starve before chicken nuggets were invented?

[BusWankers]

I'm not being horrible, genuinely curious.

You read on here how a child who has autism or some other issue, will only eat safe foods. Usually a lot of things like chicken nuggets, a particular brand of cheese and onion crisps, Nutella, supermarket pizzas (UPF mostly)

Do we think children in the 1920s just went hungry? Or perhaps they were forced to eat foods they didn't like. After all you do hear stories,of adults even now being made to sit at the table and choke down food etc.

DS suddenly started refusing foods he had previously liked when he was still a baby, I had no idea he was autistic until much, much later but I think it could easily have turned into ARFID. I found though if I got the first mouthful into him then he would very happily eat the whole rest of the meal. It was like he was suddenly terrified of food until he tasted it - even though it was things I knew he liked (home made cottage pie or spaghetti bolognaise for example). I practically had to force feed him the first mouthful though.

As he got older he would suddenly want to drop foods that he'd eaten for years. It was always healthy things he'd want to drop though! So we had a rule that if he wanted to drop something he could, but he had to find something else from the same family of foods to replace it with. We also talked a lot about favourite foods and that no one can just eat their very favourite foods because it's not healthy, that it's normal to eat foods that aren't your absolute favourite.

As a young adult he eats pretty well. He'll eat almost any vegetable although he's not so keen on fruit and will only eat a couple. He doesn't like sauces but if something is cooked in a sauce he will pick the chunks out of the sauce, he will only drink water. If he doesn't eat a particular food for quite a while then he becomes suspicious of it and will decide he doesn't like it, he now tends to stand by this even if he tries it - he's slightly more willing to try a tiny bit of things now as an adult though.

My nana ate almost exclusively white toast and butter the whole time I knew her, and she had apparently been the same from a child. She had a dreadful time when she was evacuated in the war - she told us how her sister would secretly try to eat/hide as much food as possible for her.

She was a very tiny lady - possibly stunted growth from such a limited diet.

It doesn’t work quite like that. Humans can survive on very little. Say you give someone apple juice and porridge for breakfast, they might drink the juice but leave the porridge. They then might have a some bread for lunch and then not eat dinner.

If you only offer something they hate, they won’t eat it. If forced to they will vomit it up. After a few days they may eat it to avoid starvation (or they may not). However, then you are back to square one and you have to go through another few days of starvation before they will eat the next thing they don’t like. It will create a constant battle ground.

My dad was forced to eat at as child in boarding school. They were beaten if they didn’t eat what was put in front of them. It has given him a life long issue with food that we all have to live with. When I say issue, I mean a total obsession that has big implications for the family.

Obviously, it doesn’t have to be chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets still don’t exist in many parts of the world. There will, and always would have been, some equivalent alternative such as of plain meat or plain bread.

I dont think the whole foods things is just about the foods. I have a child with ASD & ADHD who has had her safe foods for as long as I can remember. She will try new things but only if they look similar to the "safe foods". We are just back from a week AI where every day they served DC safe food but DC refused to eat for the full week. I can only assume it was down to change in routine/different place and DC wasnt comfortable to eat. DC effectively starved for a week because no matter what I done as a parent I couldn't get DC to eat. So at night after dinner had been served and taken away I would then give DC a lolly pop or chocolate to make sure there was sugar in DCs system as with the heat and busy days I didnt want DC collapsing due to no energy but also encouraged DC to try and eat the next day because I know the things being served where our safe foods from home but each day I tried and failed.

When we got home DC ate the safe foods like mad, actually finished full dinners which isnt normally like DC.

I believe children probably did starve back in the day based on my own experience with a SEN child refusing to eat even when the food is in front of them. Its not down to being fussy there is clearly a lot of other things going on inside their heads that can stop them from being able to eat.

Just wondering. How do you know this? Do you know most autistic children?

If a child is only eating chocolate bars or chicken nuggets from McDonald’s, then yes it is poor parenting in some form (that’s not saying its intentional).

We have had parents who have taken parenting classes and within a few months their kids have started eating other things.
It may only be a jam sandwich or crackers but it’s still more than just a chocolate bar or chicken nuggets.

My uncle is in his late 60s and would only eat boiled potatoes, white bread and butter and Murray Mints. So they let him get on with it.

They probably lived off other safe foods like potatoes, pasta with butter, bread with cheese, rice etc.

There's so many stories of being forced to eat/sat at the table till you ate. I'm so sorry to hear that.
We have expanded our DS diet (he has ADHD and sensory issues but has always had at least 20 good foods he will eat - though sometimes only a single brand of one or two of them) through the exact opposite, no comments or reactions around food at all.

This isn't true - a common but false myth. Plain, nutritionally poor diets may have been common in modern history (industrial revolution onwards) but there is ample evidence that the ordinary person (ordinary obviously being poor) had a diet rich in variety of flavours, vegetables and even spices from across the world, in renaissance, medieval and early medieval times.

As an aside, much of what is commonly believed about life in medieval times is wrong.

Much more limited food, all organic and more seasonal. My late grandmother told me stories about her Christmas present from her parents (around the time of the first world war) being a single mandarin orange and what a treat that was.

I don't believe there was a lot of choice in the UK prior to the rise of supermarkets and containerized shipping, much less meat eaten and less protein in general.

With respect, you’re wrong.
Ask any Eating Disorder/ARFID specialist paediatrician what’s best to feed a child with autism /ARFID who refuses to expand their safe food list and they will say straight out ‘feed them what they’ll eat and if that’s only MacDonalds and chocolate, that’s great’.

The micronutrients in those foods are extremely important and high in calories too - if not, these children WILL starve and will end up needing an NG tube or being PEG fed.

This. Children eat processed crap as safe foods because at some point it was fed to them. It cant become a safe food if it isn’t given

My sister would only eat very plain scrambled egg and dry toast in the 80s. Our mother would physically force her to swallow other things but it was pretty traumatic to watch and for her to go through and she's extremely restricted in what she'll eat even now in her late 30s.

I think in years gone by, most people couldn't afford 'allergies'. As a poor working class child I ate stuff like bread and dripping (very nice), bread pudding (cheap and tasty) and beans on toast. We simply couldn't afford to turn our noses up at foods we didn't like, and make out we were allergic to certain things. If we were offered a peanut butter sandwich somewhere and didn't want it, we just went without. No drama.

My DC is autistic and struggled as a toddler - would only eat cheese sandwiches, tinned spaghetti and fruit.

DC is now 25 and manages well with minor adaptations to family meals. Example if we are having roast chicken, DC has a bit of thigh, 3 Yorkshire puddings, carrot and peas and mash - no gravy anywhere near! If we are having spaghetti Bolognese, DC has plain pasta with grated cheese. If we are having chicken curry, DC has rice, chicken cubes and peas (essentially the curry ingredients before adding any spices or sauce). We got to this by low pressure means and adaptation over time, presenting meals with something he would definitely eat and something to try but not touching, that kind of thing. His favourite foods are white fish and red lentils!

My mother, who we now know is 'high functioning' autistic had Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) against her will because she didn't fit social norms.

Before I knew my own daughter was autistic the advice was 'don't give her anything else she will eat when she's hungry' didn't work. She would go an entire day without eating resides than eat something that she couldn't

@Cucy yesterday, my 20yr autistic ARFID son ate….

1 large Coke (macds) 212 cals
1 x double cheese burger- once he made sure they hadn’t dropped any mayo or onion bits on it (if they had he wouldn’t touch it) 450 cals
chicken in a sauce he made with noodles 168 for chicken and 348 for noodles
cooked with 2 tablespoons of oil becasue that’s an extra 248 cals)
pint milk - 374 cals

1800 cals for a 6ft 20yr old who weighs just over 9 stone.

A bad day last last week…..
coke 212csls
1 x piece boneless KFC chicken 190 cals
weetos & blue milk 374 cals
1/2 milkshake made by me with Oreo crumbs, milk & ice cream 530 cals

Altogether 1306 cals for a 20yr, 6ft man with autism and arfid.

I suppose if one rolls back to 1840, for example, some children didn't eat were regarded as delicate and failed to thrive.

When measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, mumps, even a nasty cold arose they didn't have the strength to survive.

Very tragically it may be one of the reasons why fewer children affected with ASD. As things got better the DC did survive and their genes have been passed to later generations.

People have always had highly restricted diets; it's just the exact content of these has changed. My uncle was in his late 80s when he died last year. He ate Weetabix for breakfast, a homemade jam sandwich in specific bread and a bag of crisps for lunch, and one of three very specific meals every day. When my aunt married him, his mum showed her exactly how things needed to be cooked. He wouldn't touch UPF because they were unfamiliar, but I am sure that if he had been a child today, his diet would have been UPFs

my DD (now 25) lived on a diet of banana, peanut butter sandwiches and weetabix for years. She had the same packed lunch for school/college every day. Then all of a sudden discovered takeaways taste nice and now eats pretty much everything, chinese, sushi, absolutely anything!

My DB is also ND and in his 50's. i don't remember him having plain food but my DM was a terrible cook and overboiled/cooked everything so food was often mushy!

Allergies/sensitivities/ intolerances are a real thing though, it's not about not liking a food. I expect those with allergies to dairy for example may not have thrived. Possibly they died in early childhood.

I have ARFID and I can’t just force my self to eat something that doesn’t sit in my safe list of foods.
I really, really wish I could. It’s not something I choose it’s an actual eating disorder.
I also grew up as a poor working class child, funnily enough my eating disorder isn’t aware of my social class.

It's a good question.

My son (who is probably ND) ate very little variety from about 1-3 years old. It was almost impossible for us to go out for a meal with him or on holiday. He would eat extremely plain food - we had to ask for pizza to be made with no herbs on or ask for plain tuna and bread as he'd eat that (boak!). He couldn't have certain foods on the table that others would eat due to the smell (ie coleslaw). At home I made what he wanted - things like jacket potato or a plain sandwich were ok but much harder to get when you're out.

He's a young adult now and still can't abide anything vinegary or very strong smelling, but he has pretty much grown out of his aversion to flavoursome food.

I'm sure that some children did starve or were malnourished years ago because of ARFID or other ND conditions, but if you don't know pizza or nuggets exist, then those children must have latched on to other 'safe foods', surely...

My DB and I are neurodivergent, him more so than me. Our DM didn’t buy foods like that that so his safe foods were plain boiled potatoes and carrots. It’s purely down to the foods you’re exposed to.