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.

I just ate weetabix and milk, and scrambled eggs with beans mixed in.

Perhaps they ate whatever food they considered 'safe' then.
That could be plain bread or a biscuit / cracker with cheese maybe?

Fortunately my children eat most things all home cooked and they have treats too but of course like adults they have their likes and dislikes so why should I force them to eat something which I know they detest?

There are certain things which I don't like eating and I won't eat it because I could have an alternative so why shouldn't children?

I think parents should try to give children food that appeals to them for instance if a child doesn't like mash potatoes then offer it as homemade chips whether it's deep fried in oil or oven cooked with a drizzle of olive oil - this is how my little ones prefer to eat potatoes. I m not going to force them to eat mash because I know they hate the texture.

If chicken nuggets didn't exist back then they wouldn't have been given chicken nuggets so therefore chicken nuggets would have never been their safe food.
Another food would have become their "safe" food.

If a ND child was never exposed to chicken nuggets in 2025 then they wouldn't out of nowhere request it, it's not like every ND person is hard wired to only accept chicken nuggets, you need to be exposed to these things, obviously.

Ah, sorry, not off the top of my head! I was a reading a lot of sources in various libraries at the time!

that medieval peasants had a lot more holidays (literally Holy Days) and free time than say workers from the industrial revolution onwards, including the present day

Iirc it didn't actually equate to more days off than now

Well, yes, chicken nuggets was just an example. Nowhere have I suggested that every child with issues has and relies on chicken nuggets and only chicken nuggets...

Same my DD ( nearly 6) doesn't like mash, despite being very open to trying it again every so often. She will eat loads of things,but mash is a texture thing for her.

She will eat jacket potato, bit, if being honest,she only eats the potato as it's a vehicle for the tuna/coleslaw/cheese etc.

She just isn't fussed by potatoes on the whole - only likes chips when dipped in eggs or with sauce.
Roast potatoes she'll have one of.
Mash, no go.
Sliced on mince and veg pie, she'll leave the potatoes.

Yes, I agree that looking back there were definitely children probably on the spectrum who in the 70's and 80's were seen as unusual, eccentric or worse, called odd/slow. Horrible terms. I also think a number of children placed in the bottom set had undiagnosed learning difficulties. Thankfully, things have improved. My 19 year old ds has/ had a number of autistic friends through school and college and I work in SEN education.

I have an autistic child. Yes his food maybe limited and predominantly beige, but he has more access to a healthy lifestyle than I did as a kid in poverty. I can’t force feed him but he is under a dietician who prescribes vitamins for him to swallow as he can’t bear the feel of food in his mouth.

He has been this from birth. He must likely would have failed to thrive. It isn’t because he “loves” nuggets.

@Tired43 that is absolutely horrific.

I know times have changed regarding the general approach to parenting but I find it hard to believe they would have told their friends what they were doing to you.

That is so far and beyond the old fashioned “eat what you’re given or go hungry”. It was abject cruelty.

Potatoes are more nutritious than most people believe, particularly if baked or boiled in jackets. They just get bad press because they're often cooked in fat and even boiled are relatively calorific. Chicken is one of the healthiest meats.

I hate mash.

I think you are right but maybe not in the way you mean to be.....

There's a whole thing about how the Irish did better nutritionally on potatoes than grains they were forced to turn to after the potato Why do we think they have to fortify white flour?

I cannot tell you how much I wish my child ate normally. I have felt such shame at his shitty diet because I know how much so many people judge me for it. I’ve lost friends over it.

ARFID has quite literally controlled our lives for the last 17 years. I love food, I’m an excellent cook (if I do say so myself) and love eating out. That all stopped. We can’t go out for family celebratory meals, we can’t stay in hotels (only self catering) and we’re very restricted on where we go on holiday (if countries don’t sell the right brands/types of food, then they’re off the list).

If a company changes the packaging, it’s a problem. If they announce ‘new recipe!’ you want to tear your hair out.

It’s a hideous insidious condition and the fact that so many people think it’s down to crappy parenting is just rage inducing. I would never, ever choose this life and I can’t imagine why anyone would think anyone would.

I think some people arw confused or skeptical of what ARFID actually is.
It isn't a buzz word that parents are using for 'fussy eaters'.

If your child has ARFID it has been diagnosed by an eating disorder team, my daughter was diagnosed through the NHS Childrens eating disorder clinic by the chief ARFID practitioner.
The NHS isn't going to spend money and resources on an eating disorder that isnt real.

Saying a child with ARFID is picky is like saying someone with Anorexia is just 'skinny' or someone with bulimia is just 'watching their calories'

Its a real disorder that is extremely difficult to live with and treat.

Totally with you. - it’s exhausting and definitely NOT in any way or form, bad parenting.
🤗

There are (I think) 5 subtypes of ARFID:
avoidant
restrictive
mixed type
aversive
And what they label ARFID plus, where you can be any of the above types but then the symptoms also develop into anorexia.

And I’m afraid I do think the OP was goady. There are other ways to ask the same question without getting people’s backs up (which it did for me altgoughtbmaybe wouldn’t have had such a good/interesting discussion otherwise)

In conclusion @BusWankers thank you for starting the thread. It’s been really useful as a way of raising ARFID awareness. I hope it’s been very educational

Its not a medical overview by any means but I always remember the parts of Frank McCourt's book Angela's Ashes which is about his mother and growing up in poverty stricken Ireland and that it was essentially potatoes for them, all the time

And unless Ive conflated two bits of information in my head, Im sure he makes references to why that doesnt or didnt result in malnourishment due to the number of nutrients and vitamins in potatoes. They're virtually a superfood.

Sorry for gobbledegook! I didn’t read my last post and it’s too late to edit. altgoughtbmaybe should read although it may be

I started school in 1974. There was a girl who sat at my lunch table who couldn’t eat school food. She would cry, then she’d vomit, and still the dinner ladies would try to force her to eat. Looking back at this (and other things) I guess she was ND. Her life must have been hellish.

And as the mother of a daughter with ARFID, and because my father's sisters both had anorexia (though the ARFID tendancy is though DH's side of the family and not mine) I was desperate to avoid making food any sort of battleground because I'd seen the lifelong effects of that all of my own life. DD does not have and has not had anorexia because we've been fortunate but she was mocked in school for being very slight. It's very hard to have any type of disordered eating.

My gran was born in 1922 and had issues with food throughout her life. She was hospitalised as a child and told me she was pouring her food down the back of radiators to get rid of it as she’d rather starve than eat things she didn’t like.

I was very similar to her as a child and would also rather have starved than eat most of the foods my parents tried to force me to eat. My food range is still quite narrow now.

I ate the same breakfast, lunch and dinner for nearly 3 years in the 80s. Oh and 6 pints of milk a day. One uncle lived on tomato sauce sandwiches, another and dad on specific fruit which would have been interesting for dgm in the 50s.

I went through the force feeding- they are some of the foods that I still can't eat now. I became an expert at secreting food that I could flush down the loo. My packed lunch went in the bin. Moving in with dh helped as I had a safe environment to try new food. Ds1 (18) isn't good with food and just went to S E Asia includong v remote locations for 2 weeks and I was a wee bit worried about food for him. When he came back I asked how he managed. The answer was lots and lots of plain rice and he is fine with spicy chicken so just picked out the veg.

Both my DDs are ND. DD1 - 16 - has OCD around food. We used the division of responsibility to manage it. DD2 - 15 - chose a very restrictive diet, which I accepted and looked for ways to ensure she was adequately nourished. DD1 is very self aware regarding her food and occasional disordered eating. DD2 is slowly but surely becoming willing to eat a wider variety of foods. I imagine that’s due to having more control and autonomy in her life.