To be surprised this kid’s parents haven’t been prosecuted?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Teenage boy goes blind after being allowed to eat crap for the best part of a decade (BBC News link)

I mean surely this is tantamount to child abuse, or at the very least neglect? How does a parent allow this to happen? I mean you don’t have to be a nutritionist to know that chips, pringles and white bread aren’t exactly a balanced diet...

Who introduced these foods to begin with? Parents, presumably

Are you genuinely trying to claim that this is the fault of his parents because they let him know that chips, crisps and bread (bread, FFS!) exist?!

My 14 year old is 6ft 1 and twice the size of me- I’d love to try forcing him to eat or take something he didn’t want too if he had a mental health problem🙄, it for the grace of God he doesn’t.

People in glass houses and all that.....

This now has made me worry. My ds is 8 and lives on toast and jam, sausages and dry cereal mostly due to asd, he is very much affected by it and has very limited speech.
He's been under dieticians, paediatricians etc they say to feed him what he wants for weight gain and try multivitamins but he won't take them. So they said it was ok.

Definitely going to ask them if there is any thing else we can try after reading that.

My daughter on the other hand will eat anything and everything giving to her so it's not our parenting.

ARFID is not an eating disorder. It is a food intake disorder.

I.think.you have no.idea what you are talking about Essential I have given IM injections to struggling extremely mentally ill adults under the mental health act with a full team back up.it's a distressing experience for all I can't imagine force feeding under restraint it may be an horrific situation for everybody ,I have also had to give suppositories and enemas to my disabled child ,I hate it we both end up distressed .

Perhaps some funding could be found to help children in this situation?

Fight what? No one wants to know. Pretty much all of us are fed up of fighting. We have to fight for everything, especially once they hear a diagnosis of autism you are on your own. There is nothing to fight because there is nothing there.

And if posters are wondering, yes my DS does see a paediatrician (and an eye doctor) but that is because he has a genetic condition that needs yearly monitoring, he would be there regardless of the ASD diagnosis.

My son has avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder alongside the autism, you really have no idea how difficult it is for parents. Ds eats 4 beefburgers (only a certain type only cooked a certain way and only if served on a plate he has used since a toddler) and Dairy Milk chocolate. No other food passes his lips other than a chip shop sausage from a particular chip shop when we go on holiday so once or twice a year. If he didn't have the foods available to him he wouldn't eat.
He was admitted to hospital when younger to try and address the eating because this has been a feature since he was 3yo (he's an adult now) He's had input from SALT and dieticians but it has made no difference. After eight days in hospital he was discharged having not eaten a thing and lost a lot of weight that he could ill afford to lose.
Ds knows all the healthy eating rules, it makes not one jot of difference. I could cook a thousand different items and beg, plead and bribe him but he won't look at them much less touch them or try them. He has a daily vitamin tablet now he can swallow tablets but when younger he would vomit if I had tried to hide vitamins in his food. It really is difficult and I'm sure his parents felt as equally helpless as I do to change things.

piling on the guilt to parents like me who have a DC who has always been a complete bloody nightmare with food - thanks everyone, really helpful.

My DC was born with an infection that took the NHS two years to diagnose. then on antibiotics for ages and supplements all of which were vomited up. I used to spend hours when they were little patiently trying to get in a spoonful of yoghurt or mushed fruit/veg. we had screaming, choking, snot fests. just seeing the highchair was enough. and i tried literally everything - including some woo treatments as well because I was that bloody desperate.

Now DC eats a reasonable but still restricted diet and I insist that one meal a day consists of a veg, a carb and a protein. I cant control what they eat at school. i am genuinely scared of when my DC goes to Uni and that one meal a day is no longer in my control.

I have had health visitors, doctors, dieticians all tell me time and again " dont worry they will eat when they are hungry" and that is utter utter bollocks. My DC did not eat when they were hungry. I tried that. no force spoon feeding just letting them pick at little bowls of stuff littered around the house and guess what. My Dc ended up in hospital with a fecking plastic tube.

My Dc's eating still dominates our lives even now. when we go out we need snacks they will eat. when we eat out we have to make sure that they will cater for my DC - no wet food is one of the things. Just one. as is eating things "in order" So when I read people on here saying blame the parents, take them to court, it boils my piss. walk a day in my shoes love. then tell me I could have done more.

Bookworm4 Tue 03-Sep-19 12:03:03
It says he was given B12 supplements and a diet at 14 but didn’t stick to it, the comment about dislike of textures yet chips, crisps and bread are all different textures. I think the parents need to take responsibility here, they went to the doctors 3 years ago but didn’t carry out the advice, doesn’t seem like they tried very hard.

Have you tried to force feed anyone?

he wont be the only one to eat a very restricted diet , I grew up avoiding most foods , ( a texture thing ) and although undersized for the first 10 years , I have made up for it lol
Probably only really started eating meat in my late teens , gave up again 2 years ago ......avoided eating veg for most of my life , again its a texture thing has to be raw or very undercooked

and oddly have had no health issues
there has to be more too it then what is in the paper

Regardless of whos to blame I feel so sorry for the lad and his family. Also we all know teenagers will eat what they want and ignore parents advice of whats good for them.
Its a very sad outcome. My hope for him is a cure will be found. What I am amazed at is if he wasnt taking the supplements why couldn't the GP give him it via injection every three months.

I knew someone would start a thread on this, and it wouldn't be a good one. Frankly, you're an idiot if you don't hear that news item and immediately realise there has to be a whole lot more to it - a child with autism, learning difficulties, sensory processing issues.

It is a tragic case, but it's clear from the reporting that the parents tried to get medical help.

to all the parents on this thread struggling with similar issues with their children. My heart goes out to you, and I hope you are getting the support you need. (And ignore the OP, who clearly isn't the brightest bulb in the box, and certainly a bit lacking in the empathy department).

ARFID is now recognised as an eating disorder although there’s little understanding of it, and it’s not easy to get help for any eating disorder. You can’t just decide to put your child into an eating disorder clinic, money or not, even then they don’t come out cured, just refed to a safe state, feeding then has to continue at home.

Doctors here get very little training in eating disorders much less ARFID

Because the GP can't force him to have an injection KUGA ,I'M medication can only be enforced under the mental health act and if the boy isn't mentally ill.and has capacity it would be extremely difficult.

OP...My ASD daughter has a diet exactly this bar one item...She is 7 soon and I have tried everything to get her to eat other foods to no avail..

Should I be prosecuted?

Reading this makes me realise how lucky we are with DD, almost 3. Her diet is quite restricted but she will eat several fruits, and a few veg, particularly if she knows it's home grown. Also potatoes and sometimes a bit of rice.

Won't have meat or fish, except Cumberland sausages, but hopefully gets enough protein from milk and yoghurt. Nothing with a sauce is tolerated.

She'll eat one brand of bland, powdered baby cereal, but that's highly fortified with iron at least. Other than that she eats a lot of crisps, crackers, breadsticks. And cake, biscuits and ice cream when we let her!

She does also have a smoothie with a multivitamin, so I think we're covering all the nutrients quite well, just with a fairly small number of foods.

The level of ignorance that most people have about what eating disorder treatment actually involves is astounding. Having been in an especially nasty private ED unit (autism misdiagnosed as anorexia) I can confirm that force-feeding (either physically or under threat of horrendous punishments) is one of the most traumatic and barbaric things you can do to a person with food-related sensory issues. I know I came out with a lot more food issues than I went in with.

I can easily see how you'd end up in this situation though. If you try and even dab a bit of an unsafe food on DDs lip for a taste it will make her vomit. I don't see how we could force feed without her being sick.

Ds was referred to a dietician who told me he didn’t meet the criteria for help because I had listed more foods that he would eat than their cut off criteria. I was one item over the line.
I pointed out that I had listed 3 different shapes of pasta and 4 white bread products. She told me this was a positive sign.
That, I’ve found, has been fairly typical of the “help” you get for children with asd.

5zeds there really is very little funding available to help children and young people with additional needs. Parents really are on their own dealing with their childrens difficulties, schools don't have any budget either. We are just trying to do the best we can with zero support.

So fucking sick of all the judgement. Read this: www.sensoryintegration.org.uk/News/7770248?fbclid=IwAR2-n-VeC-1f-IJEK_UNIhAd7GMvwc38cKxLz_2-8IB8_8978GhhdoG_q6A ARFID is NOT "picky eating" FFS My DS' eating has improved very slowly over time, with a lot of support and anxiety reducing strategies. It's not as simple as expecting children to eat when they're hungry - mine would go hungry for days on end (and has done in the past) when his safe foods haven't been available. We're lucky that we've found (after lots of trial and error) a decent multivitamin he will take. But hey, it's easier to hoik judgeypants up and blame the parents, isn't it?

@Barbarara was it only a dietitian you were referred to? I managed to get a referral to the Behavioural Feeding Clinic at the Evelina where a multidisciplinary team evaluates your child, including OT, SALT, psych and dietitian. Before that, I found most professionals didn’t have a clue.

Yes yabu. You know little to nothing about this poor boys situation and what his parents did or didn't do to help him.

That’s why I was suggesting funding rather than blaming parents @Punxsutawney