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'm not offended and I have an ASD teen.

I often wonder what will happen to my son if the apocalypse/war arrives and I can't make 5 jars of pasta sauce for him every week!!

My friend still feels very traumatised by being forced to eat foods that felt deeply uncomfortable. He hasn't really ever forgiven his mum.

I remember my brother had a friend round and he would only ever eat ham sandwiches

So I expect some had another safe food and others found food very distressing

Back in the 1950s of time one of my parents was sent away to the coast for a 'fattening up camp' thats not the official name, they cant remember what it was really called. Some of the children were just poor with poor access to food but many of the others had, what would now be recognised as afrid, or had 'failure to thrive"

I also know a friend of my parents only ate chicken and chips. She would have been a child in the 1940’s. It’s not a new thing brought about by weak parents - which the thread is implying - it’s been around for decades. We just have a name for it now

The big difference is that parents now are happy to give processed crap as ‘safe foods’. Previously, when these did not exist, people ate ‘safe foods’ that were healthier. I think you’ll also find, while it has always existed, the proportion of this is now a lot higher as many parents give in and encourage it at the first sign of resistance to new foods/non processed foods as opposed to what used to be true restricted eating.

So what did happen to all those children who only ate McDonald when McDonald’s shut? How did they cope during lockdown?

Interesting.

Id hazard a guess that the other chosen foods were equally bland/consistent in texture etc?

I wouldn't have thought he went from bland, easily eaten burgers and chips, with salt, fats and sugar to happily eating a spicy prawn stir-fry or a multi textured salad (something like ... Caesar salad, with dressing and herby croutons)

I was reading a book set in the ? 1930s and when people came round you offered them tea and bread and butter.

The reason chicken nuggets are often a safe food is because they are bland in flavour and predictable in appearance.
My uncle was autistic and he only ate bread crusts, mashed potato and mild cheese. Bland in flavour, predictable in appearance.
My sister has ARFID, she only eats walkers plain crisps and fish fingers. Bland. Predictable. Safe.

I was forced to eat because otherwise I’d be sent to bed. I’d have happily skipped meals but did not want to spend every evening of my life in bed.
Food Is all about control to me, I hate sitting down at the table for family meals. Have starved myself thin and over eaten at various points in my life. I absolutely hated family mealtimes as a child but my tastes widened over time. I have a daughter the same as me who eats a wide variety of foods now, but I did not make her eat things she did not like.

It was called failure to thrive and children died, despite the efforts of their parents to keep them alive. Google ARFID. Are you always so dismissive of things you clearly know nothing about.

I have a child who only ate sausages for years. He has autism and limited language. I have thought many times about what could have done differently, knowing what I know now, but still not sure it would have made any difference.

We are a family who grow their own fruit and veg and have reared their own meat even. But when your child, who has been weaned on lovingly prepared veg/meals with not a fish finger in sight suddenly stops eating it is such a worry and it doesn't happen in isolation. All the other things going on like losing language, having screaming meltdowns, hitting, biting, being unable to potty train, bowels not working at all (which predated the limited diet) and not sleeping at all- all these things distract you. Going hungry seems to make everything worse . Eggs, toast, sausages, these were the things that he would easily eat so we gave him those and at least he ate something and was marginally more likely to sleep. We thought he would grown out of it but instead he just stopped eating eggs or toast. He would eat cake as long as it was chocolate so I have made a lots of that with hidden fruit or veg in it. He would eat crisps but I didn't buy those. So I ended up with a child who had a diet of ultra processed food.

That's how it happened. Interestingly we took our son to a functional doctor who tested for deficiencies (of course he had lots) and we gave him supplements to help. Thank god he will take pills and about a year after this work was done he started to broaden his diet. He now will eat home made pizza and I make sure I never buy one as he would probably prefer that over home made, I have learned not to give him the opportunity. But life is very different now to what it was when he was four .

Edit: sorry, was meaning to quote @Twelftytwo who talked about trying to avoid introducing junk type food.

It's hard to get everyone on board when it comes to food, though - particularly other family members who might have contact with your children.

I was quite keen to avoid giving DC added sugar for as long as we could get away with, but on a family birthday around 18 months, someone gave them some cake; around 2 we were at the park with friends who got them an ice lolly, even though we politely said no, etc. I've tried not to get hung up on that type of thing but can see how "just once" happens.

Going back to the original question, to my mind chicken nuggets basically fill a slot of "fairly bland, readily available and cheap", which plenty of other foods also fit into - I'm sure I knew some kids in the 90s who lived off ham sandwiches, for instance. We're certainly more sensitive to food issues now, so there undoubtedly must be some "false positives" (children who are treated as if they have a major issue when they're probably just a bit cautious about new food), but overall the issues are not a new thing.

My husband is nearly 40 and probably would have been diagnosed with ARFID if he was a child now. He had terrible whooping cough as a baby, MIL thinks this interfered with the weaning process.

He lived on plain mashed potato and marmite sandwiches. Rarely, he would eat fish fingers but would only eat the breaded coating.

It absolutely stunted his growth.

Before his time as a child, I would imagine those children failed to thrive, got ill regularly and/or died.

You mention the rates being 'a lot higher' now. Could you point us to some data to back this up?

My friend's husband (suspected Autism) is very fussy about food and pretty much only eats meat and two veg, only flavoured with salt. That's all he ever ate, no one cared I guess as that was the normal meal.

I know parents who were desperately trying to make McDonald’s food. I know a child who ended up hospitalised. I know some who eventually ate something else. It very much depends.

Yes. A relative had 2 sons who died many years ago. As a pp said it was put down to ‘failure to thrive’.

Goady thread. Be a better person OP.

I’m recently diagnosed ADHD with a suspected shake of autistic traits and I was a kid in the early 80s. There are photos of me at the table with everyone else gone and my plate still full. I gagged if made to eat what everyone else was having, couldn’t even be in the room with some meals. We had endless fights about it.

Apparently my mum was similar in the 50s - she was one of the youngest of 14 and her mum (who had no spare funds) used to have to source bananas for her to try to keep her fed.

I should think it's incredibly rare to find kids that will eat only McDonald's. Often there are other foods they will eat.

So it might look like in a normal day
Breakfast is dry cornflakes or toast and butter.
Lunch is nuggets meal from McDonalds.
Dinner bread and butter and a strawberry fromage frais. Or plain pasta. Or maybe oven Chips.

So if they didn't have McDonald's they probably could have bread and butter, strawberry fromage frais, dry cereal etc.

Growing up in the 50s/60s you had a sack of potatoes in the scullery, ditto onions and carrots, ate plain white bread, meat the usual from the butcher, eggs, and toppings like jam for bread. Quite a lot of work cooking it but shopping and storage wasn't the thing it is now and not the expectation for variety. I think we were hungrier.

It’s only recently that humans have had such variety and options. For thousands of years people ate very simply, at least the non-highly wealthy people.

Well, there would have been other safe foods. Its not just chicken nuggets is it!

It's not being goady... It's a genuine curiosity.

I'm not the PP saying "stave them, they'll eat!!" Or "what happened when they couldn't get McDonald's" or implying that it's "weak parenting"

I'm genuinely curious and interested. My auntie was a bread and butter kid. My dad tells stories of how he was forced to sit at the table and eat everything.

Nobody said it was....

It’s difficult to separate malnutrition and infectious disease as a cause of infant mortality, but in 1900 20% of children would die before age 5, Analysis of child skeletons from then has shown clear signs of severe malnutrition such as low bone density. It’s never going to be possible to know how much of that was simply down to poverty, for example, severely malnourished mothers not producing enough milk to feed one baby after another.