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.

Yep I was brutally forced to eat and developed mental health problems as a result. Was a really skinny child, constantly being dragged to the doctor because I wasn’t putting on weight. Now have ARFID and can only eat alone. Born in 1972, diagnosed with autism in 2023.

I'm not sure why ARFID should be different to other aspects of ND in that it likely did exist but people were unable to diagnose/recognise it....so yes they might have starved in some cases. In the same way Dyslexic children might have been labelled as slow or stupid or those with ADHD were probably labelled as naughty or trouble makers, and dropped out of education

Even if I think back to my own childhood I can think of descriptors my parents used - along with remembering the person they were talking about - and some very likely had MH problems or were ND. ("She's highly strung/suffers with nerves" someone being described as "eccentric" or "quaint" etc)

Autistic children were routinely institutionalised in the good old days. Force fed. Malnourished.

Today, some autistic children are at risk of malnutrition and starvation without medical intervention such as PEG feeding.

There's no getting through to the "they'll eat if they're hungry enough" / "it's parents pandering" crowd. The fact that they hold that opinion is proof in itself that they lack any knowledge or experience. Arrogant and ignorant in equal measure.

My daughter's ex boyfriend is autistic

He had more 'safe' foods at home but, when he came to ours for dinner, he would only eat a particular ready meal chicken curry, plain cooked pasta and margarita pizza.

We love cooking and cook a wide range of meals from scratch but completely understood why it was difficult for him. After all, something as simple as spaghetti bolognese tastes very different depending on who has cooked it.

If we took him out for dinner, we always planned it with him so that he felt in control. And we always ended up going out for pizza because variation in margarita pizzas was something he could tolerate. I never quite understood that - pizzas vary massively to me!

But how many children genuinely have ARFID…

As a child my autistic step son would only eat sausages, waffles and a handful of other frozen type food stuffs. When he came over to us with his sister he would arrive with his own plate and cutlery which had been packed for him. I do get this. I didn’t meet him until he was 7 whereas his mum had been dealing with his food refusal from an early age and basically having found food he would eat .. stuck with that .
When he arrived with us and my 4 - he soon realised that what was served was ‘it’ . No other choices - he could have as little or as much as he wanted - but he had better be quick or the other 5 would soon as blink - eat his. It also helps that I like to cook and perhaps my offerings were tastier.. but by teenage years there was little he didn’t eat except anything with a ‘slimy’ texture . Which I learned to navigate.
I think sometimes both the parent and the child get into an ‘easy’ (wrong word ) rut where he ‘will only eat x’ which may have been true of a difficult 2 year old but no longer applies to a five year old. Yet parent has been reluctant to face that hurdle again . All v understandable.

My dad was definitely autistic although as he was born in 1933 he was just labelled ‘eccentric’ . He didn’t do ‘slimy food’ either - and had even been caned at school for his refusal to eat tapioca pudding but ate all other food and was willing to try new flavours into his 80s

I think food was fairly plain in the 1920s (if you weren’t rich) anyway. I’m thinking lots of potatoes so it was probably less of an issue than it is now with the huge variety we have. Also there was probably more of an attitude of you need to eat what we can get or you’ll starve. The child would know there was no other option. Popping to McDonalds obviously wasn’t an option. I think if you’re hungry enough and you’re not aware of any other option you’ll eat what’s there

I think that a safe food is actually something that the child has, and feels happy to eat because the texture is pleasing to them, as is the taste and it generally doesn't change massively. There are too many variations of difference in other foods and actually that can make people feel unsafe.

I can only speak for myself, and strangely chicken nuggets are one of the things I feel is the opposite of a safe food. Too many variations in taste and texture. Except for Mcdonalds chicken nuggets, and actually I found a gristle piece in one months ago- so they're on the overwhelming too eat list at the moment.

I wasn't diagnosed as a child, but I was labelled as an awkward bastard, just trying to make everyone else's life hard for the sake of it. Nasty, and manipulative.

It didn't make my problems with food go away, in fact it added an additional layer of anxiety to the process of eating. So the foods I would have tried to eat were absolute no goes, as I would be fearful of the reactions of my caregivers if I couldn't eat what was on my plate.

As an adult, I've tried, really really hard to change the foods I can tolerate, but the list of foods I cannot eat, or deviate from the "usual" is still quite large.

I would rather go without than try to eat the foods that are uncertain for me. I didn't starve, but I think it may have contributed to my binge eating disorder. I didn't know when I'd next get a meal I could eat so foods that I did enjoy I'd eat and eat and eat, and enjoy hugely.

Interesting
Yes I think people do judge others for what their children will or won't eat. Somehow we've failed as parents of our children only eat cheese, ham or jam sandwiches, but are some how 'better' because our child eat cheese AND tomato sandwich, or will happily tuck into a prawn mayo roll.

However it makes no difference if your child eats a cheese sandwich then eats the tomatoes separately. Neither is a "better" parent.

Well if your child has ARFID you have to hope for a good NHS dietitian. Ours was excellent and I will be forever grateful. Thanks to the NHS support DD1 grew up thin but healthy and with suitable nutritional supplements. She was an active teen who swam and sometimes did Park Run and rarely had time off school. She still has ARFID and hates it, very much wishes she could eat in a standard way.
And to answer the question children would have died earlier or been "sickly". Nobody chooses this, it's hard for the child and the family.

My sister would eat ham, sausages and beans. When those options weren't available she wouldn't eat. She was very skinny.

My grandfather was born in 1920 and would have had ND diagnosis if he was born now. He lived off potatoes and carrots for a large part of his childhood apparently. My uncle would only eat bread, potatoes and some chicken as a child. My brother and some cousins had similar restrictions. So when ND and food issues cropped up in my children's generation no one us were surprised.

No. Im ND and my parents forced me to eat whatever was put in front of me, despite most of it making me vomit after eating it they kept doing it. Even 40 years on if i go to visit they still dont remember i dont eat x, y and z.
Ended up with anorexia twice in my life.

I was too late to edit but toddlers are naturally cautious eaters (much more than just-weaned babies) and there's a huge issue in developing countries with toddler malnutrition when a new baby comes along and takes the breast milk.

There are some newer therapies that aim to help with ARFID, this one seems to be successful so far though small numbers.

https://food4thoughttherapy.com/space/

Did the parents get him back once they found out they were not starving him?

Probably not as many as are 'just' extremely fussy. My DS is not autistic but is a very fussy eater - when he was 4 we went on holiday and he was hot and bothered and the food was too different (even pizza, pasta pesto, chips, things he would usually eat) and he just stopped eating. I was giving him chocolate croissants and chocolate milk at breakfast to get something in him and he wasn't having it. He was clearly extremely hungry and had low blood sugar after 2/3 days of this. In the end what worked was bribing him with pennies to eat chips (one penny per chip) until he'd eaten a whole plateful. I didn't know children could and would refuse to eat even if they were hungry until I had one. It's very stressful and absolutely leads to giving them the food you know they will eat especially if they are slim/underweight. There is a lot of emotion connected to feeding your child and if they won't eat it can feel like a personal failing.

My younger sister wasn’t ND, but she was an incredibly fussy eater. At one point I remember her refusing everything, and then going out and eating the bread that had been put out for the birds. No milk or butter in any shape or form, let alone fatty meat! The one thing she’d always eat was potatoes - her best food was new potatoes and salad cream.

Incidentally, potatoes - particularly in their skins, are said to be very nearly a perfect food.
Sister still is a very fussy eater, and still loves salad cream and new potatoes!

The rest of us were expected to eat more or less everything we were given. The one ‘fad’ I was allowed was meat fat, which I still loathe.

I have been informed that he gets vitamins covertly added in to the ready brek all these years as health professionals made sure he has that covered due to his limited diet. I am sure it's a worry for the family all the same. He rarely leaves the house.

I assume they had a different set of "safe foods" in 1920. So depending on social status it would have differed (e.g. bread/porridge or smth more imaginative for wealthier group).

I imagine they had their own version of safe foods for whatever period of time they lived in.
My dh ate the same meal everyday whilst growing up (eats anything now) and that was over 50 years ago.

Well presumably those give a diagnosis by a qualified dietitian following DSM-V criteria do...
But I do get what you're saying. I'm sick of the term being used by those who do not have a diagnosis according to standard criteria.

To be honest this, I had Arfid, my dad did too. It was strict discipline. I remember sitting at a table with a mouthful of food in my mouth unable to swallow it and was sat with it in my mouth for 30 mins, if i retched or spat out i had to re eat it 😅 In my teens i was in an eating disorder clinic for refeeding. Even as an adult now, knowing about Arfid and diagnosed, my sensory issues regarding food cuts out whole food groups, I think if it was understood as a child it probably wouldn't be so intense now.

Also at school back then I had tinned beans everyday. I couldn't eat anything else. It was never commented on, they just accommodated that and made sure tinned beans and grated cheese was always available 😅

Im just dashing off to work but you have said what I was going to

Any thread on here where someone, rather foolishly, sets out their weekly meal plan or menus, are shouted down if its basic meat and two veg, or pasta and potato based meals. Its a real class thing, moral surperiority etc

Ye this is what we were all eating years ago and when that is pointed it, others say 'we ate badly' years ago. No we didnt, we just ate what was in season and available and filled us up, nothing was unhealthy about it.

So people who wanted safety and blandness a) wouldnt have stood out that much because we were all eating fairly similar things and b) had easy access as a matter of course because that was the diet

And I also say that as someone who lives for food, I like lots of unusual combinations and textures and flavours, but equally can recognise that for many they just like plain basic foods and there is nothing wrong with that.

I’ve wondered the same, as a parent of a child with ASD who’s a very selective eater due to sensory issues. She has certain foods she rotates through — if I don’t push, she’ll sometimes try new things.

At one point chicken tenders were the only thing she’d eat, then she went completely off them. Same with Quorn nuggets. Now it’s smash burgers from a local takeaway — but only those, not homemade ones. She gets fixated on certain meals until her sensory sensitivities get in the way again.

I was born in the 80s and was picky myself. Back then, my parents didn’t have endless branded options — we ate what they could afford, like rice, roast potatoes, and Indian home cooking. My mum was creative but still kept meals plain because I liked them that way. She’d often say, “If you want it the way you like it, make it yourself.” Sometimes she couldn’t be bothered to make separate meals, so I learned to cook.

My brother was the same — he never touched fruit or veg growing up. It wasn’t until he went away to uni that he started eating more variety. Even now he’s very particular, but he’ll eat most things if they’re plated nicely, don’t smell strong, and the kitchen is clean.

I think for some of us, it’s a mix of time, independence, and control over how food is prepared.

My friend was like this as a child. Would only eat certain foods. Had a range of about 10 foods for over 2 decades. When we went on holiday for two weeks she ate Subway for 2 weeks.

As soon as she met a man when she was older who loved food she suddenly changed overnight. 25 years of a very restrictive diet leading to very poor growth etc in childhood and now will eat anything. And just like that. It was very interesting to watch how easily she changed.