Is this ARFID or a picky teen?

[rpkjlao]

We are vegetarian, my son as well raised since birth. Now aged 13.

Always been extremely fussy and will not eat any cooked 'meals' other than the most basic plain foods. This is what my son will eat:

Cheese on toast, bread, pizza, jacket potato with cheese, potatoes, yoghurt, cereal, anything sweet, plain vegetables (e.g. carrot sticks, cucumber, broccoli etc), veggie sausage, very occasionally a veggie burger, veggie sausage rolls (limited to certain brands), porridge, plain pasta, macaroni cheese, one curry only from one shop, fruit, plain rice, veggie 'ham', tofu occasionally

There are probably a handful of other very plain foods he will eat but he refuses anything with a homemade sauce, any cooked dish such as soup, anything with mixed vegetables etc

I suspect ND and we are currently going through testing.

Although the list of foods is relatively wide it really does my head in that I cannot cook any regular dish e.g. pasta with sauce, soup, lasagne, curry, salads etc. we are basically limited to beige carbs and plain veg and I find it soul destroying

Asking him to eat a mouthful is usually fruitless, he will occasionally but generally (always) hates it, and most often refuses, so there is no point

I am going a bit crazy after 13 years. We've not had him assessed for ARFID but now I am thinking is it?

I and his dad were fussy kids but we would eat things with sauces etc, we grew out of it by the time we were older.

I am so hopeful that he will grow out of it and wonder if some of it is just stubbornness or control. I learned to pick my battles ages ago.

We also probably indulge him with biscuits, cakes, treats etc more than we should. Perhaps I need to rein that in a bit.

It affects my diet as when we eat out it has to be somewhere we can eat chips or pizza as he refuses most other stuff. If we get a takeaway it has to be a pizza or chips, if I cook something it has to be plain veg and beige carbs.

If you have any experience could you offer advice? more for my own sanity. thank you!

PS if you had a teen like this did they grow out of it? They are starting cooking at school so I am hopeful that will change things a bit. But he even refused to taste the curry he cooked at school.

It doesn't sound like a serious food restricting eating disorder, no.

It sounds like a mixture of preference and teenage fussiness.

It's often amazing how quickly their tastes change when they have to cook for themselves at Uni.

There are a few things to consider - are you, in fact, not a very good cook? This is a tricky one to confront but my mum would say she had picky kids. In fact, she was a godawful cook so we all ate as little as possible at home unless it was things even she couldn’t fuck up. It’s also the reason I’m a really good cook - because it became clear at a very young age that that was the quickest way out of having to eat my mother’s cooking!

Is he able to articulate why he prefers those version foods? Is it a textural thing? Reliability of taste? Smell?

I am a good cook so it's not related to that.

I think it's a response to texture, mixed foods, or that things taste spicy or strong usually. even black pepper elicits a strong response. no onions. will eat garlic bread, but garlic in other things nope.

you say 'teenage' fussiness but pretty much he's always been like this.... so it's not really any more restricted than when he was younger.

perhaps he would have eaten the odd occasional extra food as a very young child. but only at nursery.

I try not to be controlling or whatever

Ok then childhood fussiness.

Either way it doesn't particularly sound like a serious food restricting eating disorder.

But if you think it does and you can get him tested, it would probably put your mind at rest.

One of my DD’s friends at primary was diagnosed with arfid and it doesn’t sound like that. It does sound limiting though. If I were you I’d move towards cooking a more varied diet for the rest of the family and provide separate food for your DS. I’d explain what I was doing to him, and would also get him to start (not all at once and with help) catering for himself. Luckily some of his likes are really easy to prepare. Buy a few frozen pizzas. Teach your DS to chop carrot and cucumber. Bake a few jacket potatoes in the oven when you’re cooking something else and then they can be reheated easily by / for your DS. My DS was quite fussy, though not as limited as yours, and he got quite a bit better at 15 or so, when he realised how limiting and unhealthy his diet was, perhaps your DS will be more willing to expand his food choices in a year or so, good luck OP.

Absolutely not even close to ARFID. My ARFID child is now fed by a tube in bowel. It's severe restrictions.
I have two other kids who are really fussy and only like the complete opposites of each other. Generally I cook different meals.
IMHO raising a child vegetarian or vegan can cause issues with food.Any replacement meat product has horrendous texture.... I was vegetarian for 12 years.

My DS is exactly like this (now 21). He does have some allergies and doesn’t eat pork as he is Muslim, so I do think in his case it’s so that he can be sure the food is ‘safe’. He also has OCD.

He eats about 6 different meals and just rotates them. It doesn’t affect what we eat as a family as I cook whatever we fancy and if it doesn’t fit for DS I cook separately for him. He absolutely will not try other things when I have asked him to over the years, he would starve himself rather than try.

He has however improved slightly since starting Uni and cooking for himself, he has maybe added 3 or 4 additional options to his repertoire, but will only eat them if he cooks them. At uni we had to get him a studio in private halls as there was no way that he would have been able to cope living in shared accommodation (the OCD, mess and others using his things would have been really tough for him). But having access to his own kitchen and cooking for himself has definitely helped a little as others have said.

I would just cook what he wants and do something different for the rest of the family. I have found the less focus I give it, the easer life is and the less stressed we both are!

My teen was like this.

we did a lot of work on trying various raw fruit and vegetables. He slowly expanded what he ate.

he now has a fairly normal diet while being vegan for eco reasons. Eats a lot if Japanese and Chinese food.

i'm sorry to hear about your child.

re the veggie thing, with due respect, millions or even billions of people around the world are raised vegetarian without being fussy (India anyone!?)

and given he actually eats replacement meat products this is clearly not the issue. I only give them to him as he refuses other foods (curry, sauces etc).

I strongly suspect that it's due to ND

I get that lots of people have strong opinions against vegetarianism, but people like to stick the boot in whenever they can. thanks for the judgement.

I hope that people aren't similarly judgemental of your child's ARFID.

thank you I am super hopeful that we will be able to change it soon!

I love this take on it. Going to give it a go with the raw fruit and veg and keep trying, good idea. This does seem to be one thing he will try.

I have a DS like this. He's now 20 and gradually getting worse. He hardly eats any fruit/veg. He won't eat food with sauces and doesn't like rice. At least he does eat meat, but if he was vegetarian I'm not sure he'd be alive. He loves sweet stuff. I suspect ASD but it's undiagnosed (ADHD diagnosed). It's definitely control combined with anxiety/lack of appetite.

I hope that people aren't similarly judgemental of your child's ARFID.

Why would they be?

ARFID is not a choice.

And neither is picky eating from what I gather, but blaming it on a child being raised vegetarian is ok?

In spite of the millions of children raised veggie without fussiness?

seems just like an excuse to stick the boot in for someone raising their child to be a vegetarian.

My teen ds is fussy too but with different things op. I cook separately for me, DH and DD. I sometimes will meal prep for ds but now he's older, he cooks his own food and has for a while. Id teach your ds to do the same if I was you.

Not sure it would meet the threshold for ARFID, but I also don’t think it’s ‘fussiness’. If you suspect ND it could well be a sensory issue. Certain therapies can help with this, though not sure how effective it would be at this age

What? You mean like just eat pot noodle?

It's so common for kids with ASD not to like sauces (DS is the same) and to be picky about food. DS doesn't do fruit (apart from a couple of things reluctantly). It's also easy for them to cut out more and more foods to keep only their very favourites which I had to discourage when DS was younger - he was allowed to cut things out that he's previously liked but only if he replaced them with something else from the same food group (he generally decided not to cut things out after all).

My point was, vegetarianism is a choice but a serious eating disorder where the PP said her child was being fed by a tube into the bowel, is not so it's pretty pointless telling her you hope no-one judges her for it.

That said, no-one should be judging you for the food choices you make for your child.

My DS, 16, has had struggles with food - he was tube fed for a number of years as a baby/toddler which had a huge effect.
I tend to serve meals with all the components in separate dishes so he can pick and choose which stuff he has (so I keep protein separate from the curry sauce etc) He has actually got a lot better over the last couple of years and now eats a good variety of all food groups. He does still get a bit anxious if he’s going to someone’s house and eating there incase it’s done ‘wrong’ but is slowly getting better.

meat eating is also a 'choice'.

my comment was in response to their earlier judgemental statement that in their opinion vegetarianism causes eating issues.

My son has ARFID and at one point weighed 4.5 stone at 11.5 years old because his eating is so restricted.

He is 14 now and only 6.5st. He will eat about 7 foods in total. He would starve before eating anything outwith those foods. Your son sounds fussy. ARFID is very different to fussy eating.

Mine (autistic) is a bit like this (although completely different tastes, loves strong and saucey things, hate bland and beige food). Adult now. We gave up all trying to eat the same meal many, many years ago, it might be a bit more effort but it meant everyone was eating food they were happier with and mealtimes were no longer massive stress-fests. We also started going to the shops together and really involving him in food choices and cooking, getting him to pick new things to try and no issue if he doesn't like them, the main thing was to try. Buying age appropriate cook books and doing the same. There are plenty of things he still won't eat (potatoes in any shape or form for example) but we manage.

Sounds hard op whatever the reason.

My DS is ND no arfid but very particular I think it’s mainly texture related. However it’s also anxiety related. He’s worried he won’t like it so then wont try and if he does he doesn’t really give it a chance.

could you take the pressure off a bit? So cook from scratch meals for you and then provide plain pasta or jacket etc for DS. He’s obviously welcome to try yours but no pressure at all. It might not work but might help to reduce his anxiety so that he feels more in control?