To think just don’t offer them beige food?

[Ashlll]

Or am I spectacularly uneducated here? My sister has a 3 year old who apparently will only eat beige food and mostly crisps. She says it’s a sensory thing and we have to respect it when around him, for example when I took him and dd out last week I had to give him quavers rather than the snacks I had got for dd… which then made dd want quavers too! Same with water, he won’t drink it and it has to be juice.

I am not massively strict but did say to dsis just don’t buy these things then he won’t know he can ask for them… she says he just won’t eat or drink. I think this is ridiculous (I’ve not said this to her). AIBU?!?

As I said previously my children had a balanced diet with plenty of veg/ fruit. Mostly cooked from scratch and veggie however we did have fish fingers ( sometimes home made)mash and peas once a week. Their grandparents took them to McDonald’s 2 or 3 times a year. It’s about balance which is hugely important. I know I did nothing wrong aside from letting my son go to bed hungry night after night. They couldn’t have had a more healthy diet.

All 3 of my children have autism and ADHD. I has an Arfid beige dry type eating disorder another Anorexia that began with trying to only eat healthy foods as a teen. She ate anything as a child. The other eats anything although not enough and he gets fixations with just the same food for weeks on end. None eat enough fruit and veg now they’re adults and 2 don’t eat enough .

It needs to be remembered that a lot of parents don’t realise their children have autism in the early days.

There really is a lot of ignorance on this thread.

This! Most of this is on my sons beige dry menu.

He filtered baby rice through his mouth in disgust as a baby. He’s a twin and was fed from the same pot as his non Arfid twin- a plethora of veg, hummus , wholegrains etc with high exposure to a variety as per Annabel Karmel. He wasn’t offered alternatives which I feel hugely bad about now. He’d just sit there quietly and miserably eating little.

There are some children who despite what you do will need beige dry
foods.They are safe., dry and sometimes high calorie and their body cries out for them for a reason.

I have to say worrying about a less than ideal diet is often the least of your problems once kids get to the teen years.

To be honest when I was growing up in the 80’s lots of people ate that processed white bread. My grandmother always distrusted it and had wholemeal and I remember a lot of people thinking she was a bit “ health freaky” for doing so.
Roasts with fatty cuts of meat were much more common and I had several friends who were allowed Nutella on toast for breakfast and white bread sandwiches with jam or peanut butter made regular appearances in school lunches. Today that would strike me as beige eating. We weren’t allowed Nutella, and jam only as a treat on scones, so there was some awareness about, but many did. Greens were definitely a thing, but often cooked till quite soggy snd I don’t remember children liking them the way mine love a crunchy green bean or, for that matter, things like edamames or roasted cauliflower. Cauliflower would have been boiled back then.

I suppose what I am saying is I wonder if there are more picky eaters now or if it just went under the radar more because there was less awareness and the diet wasn’t as far removed from the general diet . I get the whole upfs thing; but together with that, I do think as a society we now have higher awareness of what we SHOULD be eating.

Roasts are now seen as a “ treat”, whereas many of my grandmother’s generation thought it boastworthy how often they cooked them. Lots of roast potatoes. Bread was mostly white. If a child was a beige eater they could navigate that environment far better than everyone sitting round eating avocado and poached egg on seeded bread ( which is our breakfast this morning!) . No white bread or Nutella in the house.

Also there was less fruit about when I was growing up. Apples, yes; pears, yes; oranges yes - not sure where they came from. But things like strawberries were seasonal, as were stone fruits. Where there is less variety, people with very limited diets don’t stick out as much.

I went to the GP/HV many times over the years and they said it's normal, they are growing, you're being overly anxious - just offer food and they'll eat eventually (they didn't) and then just feed them calories of whatever they'll eat when they lost too much weight . It's not as easy as just going to the GP and you get help, this is really naive.

@Riaanna well aren't you the lucky one. Though I suspect that you see yourself as the perfect mother. I'm not going to repeat my previous posts detailing our experience as you obviously can't be bothered to read or understand them.

It’s naive and unsympathetic.

I've got four children.

All brought up and weaned the same - mostly healthy, home cooked food with the odd beige food dinner when we have lots going on.

Three out of four will eat practically anything, with the exception of visible onions or mushrooms.

One is a fussy eater. No arfid, no additional needs. Just plain fussy. He ate fine until he was about three or four as well. Now would live off noodles, pasta, pizza, nuggets and hash browns.

He was give nuggets because he was a normal eater, and it was one meal out of however many we eat in a week.my other children were fine, ate the nuggets and waffles, but still ate other foods as normal. Not this kid.

I try and encourage him to eat as varied diet as possible and occasionally we luck out and he likes it, but more often than not he goes back to beige foods. He's 13, so he knows what he likes and doesn't like. He plays football, he's sporty and healthy, so to me, making sure he has enough calories to get him through the day is my priority.

I think there's something in what @Calliopespa is saying about more food being available nowadays, so fussiness and food-related issues stand out a lot more than they did 50-100 years ago, or even 25 years ago.

No idea what you mean. I wasn't providing a definitive list of foods which are beige coloured.

You said he wouldn’t be demanding beige food as he wouldn’t know what it was. Do your kids never eat beige food?

Excuse me? What on earth are you talking about? Have you tagged the wrong person?

Is your suggestion that a healthy relationship is created with food by forcing children to eat each other? Also, if it helps, my daughter has been hospitalised and tube fed because she will just not eat. Anorexia ring a bell? Eating disorders, including ARFID, do actually cause death. Comparing that to a human eating another is bizarre.

You do realise that the phrase "beige food" refers to a specific type of junk food? Often breadcrumbed and always full of nasty additives. The foods you listed are neither beige nor "beige food". To be literal rice is brown or white, potatoes white or yellow, and chicken pinkish white or brownish depending on the part of the chicken.

My children never ever ate "beige food" when small though I'm sure they eat most of the things on your list now.

Actually, when it comes to ARFID and childhood eating issues, "beige food" refers to safe, plain, bland foods. Normally bread, crackers, crisps, potatoes, toast etc.

No, it doesn’t. Some people have decided that’s what it refers to it. When you’re dealing with HCP’s beige food refers to food that is beige. Food which is also historically low threat and safer, less likely to be poisonous, cause allergens, consistent in texture and flavour, and a much needed part of the diet. Understanding what is meant by beige food is actually a starting point for understanding ARFID.

Fascinating

So interesting!

I’m a tad confused. On what basis did you tell me that beige food refers to a type of junk food?

No. I tagged the correct person @Riaanna

Then you’ve done a spectacular job of ignoring the context of my posts and missed the point I made entirely. Well done.

why do you need to feed a toddler / child junk? There is no school pressure at that age. So why start???

The fact that you have assumed that ARFID is children living off crisps at 2 because parents fed them crisps at 2 tells me you’re not directly impacted by selective eating, have no personal or professional experience and are coming from a place of judgement rather than a place of wanting to understand.

Beige food =/= junk.

It means plain, safe, bland foods - so things like bread, plain pasta, rice, crackers, breadsticks, cucumber, mashed potato. All perfectly normal, healthy foods that most people feed their children.

I’m referring to the OP and the crisps / quavers. I’m wondering how you get to the point that your toddler / young child will only eat crisps? You’re right I have never experienced more than the usual fussy eating which my kids thankfully grew out of. Irrespective, they would never have had quavers or crisps as toddlers!