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.

Its not normally the palatable bit that makes upf foods the go to choice, its the consistency. You can guarantee more or less that this nugget will taste and have a texture like the nugget 6 weeks ago.

If you replace it with white bread, butter and sugar which was a very popular sandwich in the recent past, its not necessarily better for you or upf but it would still be restricted eating.

Just curious how many died from starvation as chicken nuggets hadn’t been invented? What a bizarre comment. Isn’t it obvious they had different safe foods. Food tastes change over time anyway, what’s to say autistic DC in 50yrs time won’t have different types of safe foods. Pretty likely. The autistic children I know don’t live off chicken nuggets. Friends severely autistic / non verbal DC enjoys a variety of foods including curry.

My daughter's safe foods aren't typically cucumbers, raspberries, blackberries, cooked carrots, lettuce, chips, a particular packet sauce over noodles, plain pasta with ketchup and grated cheese.

When we go on holiday these things often aren't safe anymore as they taste different. For example a variety of cucumber with bumpy skin, fruit that tastes different (I would say better). The answer is she tries her safe food, gets noticeably anxious, can't eat anymore, becomes more hungry eventually becomes distressed (made worse by hunger). She then tries something new or different food and finds something that works and eats that for the rest of the holiday.

I suppose we could refuse her safe foods at home and she might eventually eat whatever was there. But it would be massively distressing for her the rest of the family and we would rather she is happy.

I guess in the past children were forced to eat what was there or went hungry but was it good for their mental health? No, probably not. I imagine there wasn't much choice sometimes.

The note re UPF is significant because they’re the only foods that are totally uniform, even mash potato can come in different consistencies.

Be less patronising.

Sure.

Goady af. How sad that you and others do this.

A bit off topic but I work with ND children and the number of kids who only eat burnt, dry toast is crazy. I mean burnt not just a bit brown and with no butter..

In the not too distant past, infant mortality was very high. That would have masked children who died through ARFID related starvation.

But people also ate less generally and diets were simpler, which would also have masked it because many components of everyday meals would have been safe to many.

UPF foods are often safe because they are completely uniform. And easy.

The Internet didn't exist so people were unaware of it unless it affected their family personally.

Personally, I imagine that, if your child's diet is so limited they will only eat two or three things, firstly, you'd just be grateful they were eating something and, secondly, if their only food intake was plain pasta and plain chicken, it wouldn’t be much better, nutritionally, than chicken nuggets and smiley faces anyway

I'm the same age as you and, although not autistic, my meal times were like that too. I wouldn't have been offered anything else and at and at school had to sit there until parents or dinner ladies just gave up. I was pretty skinny. I started eating a better diet when I learned to cook for myself at about 15 but was always very slim until my 50s..

UPFs are safe food because they always taste the same! As an undiagnosed child, I found it really hard to eat the same meal at school or at one grandparents as it wasn't the 'same' at all. The continual stress led me to develop anorexia
As a teenager I lived on Findus cheese pancakes and value mini pizzas.
I had a great aunt who only ate jam sandwiches.

One of my uncles allegedly (according to my grandparents) lived on butter for a month because it was the only thing available that he was willing and able to eat when the family moved temporarily to the USA. This was in the early 1960s and he was around six when they moved.

They started out in a hotel with no cooking facilities, so mainly eating in restaurants. Even back then there were plenty of "kid friendly" menus, but even the simple foods that superficially seemed like they would be familiar and safe to him (toasted cheese, fish fingers, tomato soup, etc.) were different enough that he refused them. And back then even the convenience foods or "treats" like candy bars, biscuits, crisps, etc. were different from country to country; you couldn't simply buy the brand and flavor he "liked". And you couldn't make him eat; he'd projectile vomit.

Once they were settled in a house with a kitchen, my grandmother was able to make simple things that he would eat again, but it was a lot of trial and error.

Yes exactly - potato waffles, noodles. That sort of thing.

@BusWankers I have wondered this and in some developing countries where even basic food can be difficult to find for many. I guess there are fewer cases of arfid and those that are there waste away? Cam autistic children outgrow arfid on their own or when repeatedly forced (a form of exposure therapy)? I have adhd and Possibly ok the lower end of the spectrum. No issues with most foods. But my father who born early 1940s in an African country was described as very very picky eater eating a few foods you can count on your hand. It partly affected where he attended school. While doing his degree in another country they basically got him his own chef. Yet as far as I remember he loved food and experimenting. My mum grew up in the same country and apparently ate two foods (as main meal. Not sure what she did with all the tree climbing for fruit that kids do in my country). Both her parents were busy professionals but her dad cooked her those 2 foods every day. He died when she was 9 and she was sent to boarding school where catholic nuns quickly changes her diet . She remembers this change vividly and I think it was a trauma for her. She eats almost anything.

I don't know if my parents had arfid as it wouldn't be known then and is still not known in my country but it made me wonder what was going in with them and the fact that when I knew then (they were adults obviously) they ate anything and everything.

Well, it probably has done him harm. He is possibly malnourished and may "pay the price" later in life, especially if he hasn't been taking vitamins etc.

But it's likely that he eats more than just readybrek to the exclusion of every other food source. I assume it would be incredibly rare for someone to eat only one type of food.

Wow that’s sad. There must’ve been a lot of panic.

My mum (born 1950) has ARFID. Everyone knows she’s a picky eater, and she hated everything her mum cooked when she was growing up She couldn’t believe her mum tried to get her to eat barley, and all meat was ‘gristly’. Luckily, she likes salad and roast chicken/eggs so she’s able to have a limited but healthy diet. No garlic or flavour other than salt/pepper.

She hates eating out and would never touch ‘foreign’ food (M&S pizza at an absolute push).

The consistency of upf foods is what makes them good for supporting children with arfid.

When you eat a blueberry you don’t know what it will taste like - some are sharp, some sweet, some soft, some firm, some squishy, some off but you can’t tell until you try. If you have sensory issues with food taste/texture/mouthfeel that’s really triggering.

When you eat a Mac Donald’s chicken nugget it is always consistent, and always bland. It doesn’t change irrespective of where you buy it, it’s always cooked consistently and always tastes the same. So you feel safe.

Whilst no upfs is a great general health goal, it isn’t a sensible one to aim for with a child with arfid. To keep the child as healthy as possible you’re aiming for something from every macro food group plus a way of artificially adding vitamins (eg a vitamin tablet/powder) and a healthy weight. For some children even this is impossible.

Alongside that you’re aiming to teach that variety in foods and trying new things can be positive- eg if you like Mac Donald’s chicken nuggets let’s try these Asda ones. So that the trying something new is seem as good if/when they outgrow the worst of their sensory issues.

In terms of supporting arfid processed nuggets are actually pretty good in that regard - carb and protein - many kids with arfid eat no protein.

Affluent people did eat spicy food back in the 1920s and earlier - the influence of cuisine from countries that were part of the British Empire brought exotic dishes over here, and as far back as the Middle Ages, spices were added as a preservative and were highly prized.

However, the ordinary working class person would have eaten a bland diet, bulking up what meat they could afford with cheap, filling foods such as potatoes, Yorkshire puddings etc.

Sadly, infant and child mortality was much higher in those days, and understanding of the causes of it much lower. A child not eating might have been put down to 'consumption' (TB) or some other illness rather than an eating disorder, and society at large would take the death of an individual child as a normal, inevitable event rather than delving into the causes of it.

This dangerous thinking led to my niece being admitted to hospital.

Dsis let her MIL's poison words about her being a bad mother in, and stupidly looked for advice online rather than ask dnieces consultant pediatrician for an appointment. Online was full of morons who told her she was being too soft and niece 'wouldn't starve, she'll eat it eventually'.

Cue Dsis's panicked phone call when niece passed out. She hadn't eaten for over four days. Not one thing. And she was crying with hunger but would retch when being forced by her desperate mum to try her 'unsafe' foods.

In her defence Dsis was still young, and overwhelmed. But she was chewed out by the consultant when she saw her.

Her words, seared in to my sisters mind:

"If all she will eat is a sugar sandwich, or a fishfinger, then that is what you give her. Make sure she takes her vitamins and the fibre supplement. She's growing, shes healthy. It's not the best, but it won't kill her. But I tell you this, not eating WILL'.

I’m trying to find a video I saw that had side by side live imaging of a child with autism eating and swallowing and a NT child.

Their throats acted differently and there was a difference in the brain-swallowing connection. I think if people saw this video it might explain how it can also be a physical issue and not just a psychological one.

They would have had safe foods the were prevalent at the time I imagine.

I don't think you should starve children into compliance.

Your poor sister xx

There's a book called Neurotribes which tries to answer this question and look for examples of possibly autistic children/adults through time. It's excellent though harrowing as well.

The examples given in the book are children who eat things like bread - plain, predictable food. But it's also likely that in times where childhood disease was much higher, children with poor nutrition died more often from these diseases. Don't forget a lot of children had poor nutrition not due to behaviour/sensory issues but due to poverty and food scarcity as well. It's also not uncommon for children who have extreme food sensitivities like only eating a very narrow range of foods to have had feeding difficulties as babies, so they often would have been weaned early onto pap (bread mush) or animal milk which was also highly risky in terms of both nutrition but also hygiene. So children with feeding difficulties in general would have been less likely to survive. It's not a black and white thing of course. Many of the examples in the book are children from well off families where their preferences could be catered to. Of course that could also be differences in whether or not children from poorer families were even observed or recorded.

Even in living memory I used to teach a lady who would be in her 70s now, she grew up in a family of 12 and their meals were never catered to preference because it would have been impossible. She used to try and sit by one particular sister who hated vegetables and loved meat, and they would swap because she hated fatty, gristly meat but liked vegetables. I know that's not the same as ARFID but it's one way that families adapt what they have.

I'll see if I can find it but I read an article a while back about the safe/comfort foods from different cultures. So in the UK almost all children will eat chicken nuggets and plain pasta and cheese, but in different cultures it is different foods.

I do think that food in the past had less strong or variable tastes probably played a part as well.

I'm pretty sure my now adult cousin is autistic, when we were younger even in our teens etc he would only talk to others through his mum including family. He was better when it was just us children in the garden etc but not adults, he only ate boiled potatoes, white bread, something called chicken roll which was like cheap ham made from processed chicken and the cheapest mini sausage rolls you can imagine, the really pale ones with mushy insides, he would eat only these things, we'd go to my grandparents for a roast and he would eat boiled potatoes with chicken roll while we all tucked into roast, even roast chicken, with all the trimmings. This was in the late eighties and early nineties. To this day he doesn't eat any fruit or veg, he's very thin and pale and I know he has problems with his teeth.

He does have a job stacking shelves in a supermarket overnight which he's done for about ten years and seems to enjoy which he started when his mum also worked there and he's able to talk in family group situations now. Apparently his school raised concerns but my aunt refused to have him 'labelled'. She has essentially been his shield from the world, he still lives with my aunt and uncle and is nearly 40, my aunt takes him to and from work and I don't see the situation changing. I think when they eventually pass he'll live with my other cousin his sibling. He seems to be able to do most things now including holidays etc if he's with his family. He did randomly book a cruise last year and went alone and everyone was gobsmacked, it was a ship they'd been on twice before as a family so maybe it felt safe?