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?!?

Nope. I remember sitting in front of a plate with rare roast beef on it for HOURS as a child, because putting it in my mouth would have literally made me vomit.

Wasn't called ARFID then. It was called being a picky eater.

My son will vomit on the table if I try to make him eat food he doesn't like. (I don't force it now, but I did a bit when he was younger and learned my lesson the hard way 😂). He has some borderline foods that I can get him to eat at home, if I approach it the right way (a raw carrot to hold and eat while playing for example). So it isn't that it's just all beige stuff.

But a food aversion is a genuine physical thing. Saying it didn't exist 50 years ago is daft. It's like saying no one was dyslexic 50 years ago, when actually those children were just labelled thick.

Please don't assume that the parents of fussy children are stupid or aren't trying. Do you really think we haven't thought of these blindingly obvious "solutions"?

@Saladleaves17 I also fed my eldest DC 100 foods before 1. Every fruit and veg you could name. Home cooked stuff - I'm a pretty good cook. Didn't really have cake or crisps or even beige oven food. And for a while he ate it, but after about 18 months old it all starting dropping off, as did his ability to eat anything with mixed texture or sauces that weren't absolutely smooth. All of which happened at the same time the first signs of him being autistic became obvious.

Now he only regularly eats potatoes in chip form and his only veg (really) is baked beans. I'm immensely proud that he'll sometimes swallow down a couple of the peas I always give him. The highlight of my week a few weeks ago was him taking a voluntary bite of a samosa. And I'm so, so lucky compared to a lot of parents of autistic kids because at least he's not brand specific, hits most food groups, and has about ten meals I can rotate. I try to expose him to new foods but I also have to balance the effort and energy trying something new takes him with the other demands on him; seeing what something new tastes like isn't exciting or interesting for him, it's deeply anxiety provoking.

Nothing punctured my fantasy that parenting was "input-output" like my DS's relationship with food.

Guarantee there's something in the way you parent that baffles your sister. File this one under none of your business.

Some kids are highly textural and restricted eaters - my sister was one, ate barely anything as a child, and we had 'you'll get what you're given' parents. My sister won the battle and got thinner and thinner and paler and paler, so my mum blended all her meals for her until she was about 6. She eats a wide range of normal food now but there was a time when all she would eat was peeled cucumber.

Some kids are highly textural, non-restricted eaters - my son, eats a very wide range of things but some textures make him physically gag (paste-y things especially - porridge, some mashed potatoes). It's all good.

Some kids have ARFID and it's a nightmare for their parents and their safe food is extremely important.

Some kids weren't introduced to a wide range of foods and so don't eat them.

Some kids have been and just have preferences, like adults do.

Far too many factors for you to do anything other than accept what your sister is telling you. Also in the scheme of crisps, Quavers are fairly good guys.

I'll bet this is your sister's first kid because this is just silly. Even the stupidest animal will eat whatever's available, if it's hungry enough.

When a toddler is overly focused on because Mom is an anxious, inexperienced parent who caters to her kid's every whim instead of just letting the kid skip a meal or two, that's when a little finickiness can turn into this.

However, she is not listening and apparently gets offended at any suggestion that she doesn't know it all, when it comes to her kid. So if you've already told her your take on it, I'd just ignore her. It's most likely just a phase and will soon pass anyway. :)

I never gave my kids any beige food, no juice, no junk. They didn’t know it existed so ate what they were given. I introduced it to them much later and now they love a chicken nugget but also eat everything else. I don’t understand how a 3 year old knows what a chicken nugget is. Just don’t give it to them.

Are you honestly trying to say that say a 2 year old who has never had a chicken nugget in their life will starve themselves for something they don’t even know exists? You can’t seriously be suggesting that there is not another single safe food in the world that a child will eat apart from a chicken nugget?

In your example, yes I would absolutely try every other food known to man I could get my hands on before giving a chicken nugget. I have nothing against chicken nuggets by the way I absolutely love the nuggets from McDonalds I’m just using it as an example.

Do you really think it's a case of just not offering them "beige" food and children will suddenly eat anything else offered?

They haven't 'developed' they've just been recognised and named now. If your children didn't have them, that's because you and they were fortunate, not because they were brought up in a decade gone by. I brought up my child who ate a very restricted diet in the 90s when the only name I knew for it was 'fussy eater'. The fact I hadn't heard of the condition that with hindsight she obviously had, made not a scrap of difference to the fact she would eat only fish fingers, cucumber and white bread toast for two years.

I always wonder how kids grow a liking to processed food. How do they know they want or like this kind of food if their parents have never introduced them to it?

I think it's probably hard to understand until you have a child like this, My DD is so fussy, not on beige foods and i've never quite got to the bottom of it but we are awaiting assessments for adhd and autism due to other things as well so could be one of those. The amount of food i buy and have to dispose of whether that be give to someone else or bin depending on packaging / dates is awful. Food is so expensive. It is much easier to just buy the things i know she will eat.

Does he actually have sensory issues or is it just easier for her to say he has when he won’t eat properly?
If you look after him you could also offer other snacks and see if he does eat anything else. If he does I’m sure your sis will be pleased he has tried something and if he doesn’t you know your sisters right on the matter.

I've got two kids. I treated them exactly the same when it came to weaning etc. We all eat together, around a table, blah blah blah.

One will eat almost anything. The only real exception is food that is particularly spicy.

The other has a safe list of foods and will not venture beyond them. Thankfully they do include some veg. He would prefer to go hungry than eat something off the list.

Sometimes parents really are powerless.

Well, yes, quite.

You find yourself with a grey-faced child at a hospital appointment being told "Right now, the priority is any food, not healthy food. If he'll only eat hobnobs, it's hobnobs."

(He didn't like hobnobs, in fact. That was just her example.)

It's been suggested that the reason that kids on the spectrum and kids with sensory issues tend to go for ultra processed food is that it is predictable. One pringle will be exactly the same as the next pringle. You know what to expect from beige food. Natural foods eg grapes, can taste and feel vastly different even if they look the same.

Well, clearly you have led a very sheltered life. My DM, raised in the 1940’s, had ARFID - undiagnosed. My cousin , raised in the 1960’s had ARFID - only diagnosed in adulthood, would only eat 1 dinner his whole life. My son, diagnosed at 8, after having a helpful granny with your attitude who shouted at him; force fed him; slapped him - needless to say, he doesn’t see her now, his choice, he is 18. He has been hospitalised for complications caused by not eating - even the threat of another hospital admission cannot make him eat.

But enjoy feeling superior, why don’t you. At least my ‘badly parented’ family have empathy.

Smugness is never a good look.

I’ve already replied to the previous comment who has said something similar. But as I said earlier, a 3 year old won’t associate a beige food as a ‘safe’ food if they’ve never been offered it. There are thousands of foods in the world, you can’t be suggesting a 3 year has it ingrained in their body from birth that they can only eat a fish finger or chicken nugget and that’s the only option for a parent.

It only becomes a safe food because of an adults choice to feed it to them.

I'm gluten intolerant it would be easier for me to raise my children gluten free I don't I raise them to have gluten containing foods the older they get the more they understand my side of the toaster vrs there's my butter and there's etc etc I would never allow my food restrictions to impact my child's wellbeing

Yep. I have vivid memories of sitting at home in front of a plate of food and refusing point blank to eat it. My dad was telling me not to be so ridiculous and to eat my dinner. So I did, and promptly vomited it back up all over him.

He never tried that move again, lol.

When your child will starve themselves over eating a healthy diet, you will give them whatever food possible.

Because of the high proportion of children whose parents claim they would rather starve for days than eat anything wholesome. I don't imagine children in other times and places throughout history and the world were starving themselves into oblivion. There may have been the rare anomaly. But really for most kids and parents it's about will and preference.

Yes.

I could say, same, same, same, about my son, until he was about 1 1/2. And then he started to refuse foods he'd previously loved. All home made food. All highly nutritious. Carefully thought out because he was a vegetarian, to make sure he was getting the right protein.

Now he much prefers beige food. Will beg for it. He isn't quite ARFID because he has a couple of veg he will eat. And he is sometimes prepared to try other foods if he knows he can spit it out/not finish eating it.

And unlike your vegetarian statement, he repeatedly asks to eat meat. We let him try it (because despite being vegetarian ourselves, know meat is good, nutritionally and getting nutrient rich food into him at times is very hard). He asks on at least a weekly basis.

So I'm afraid, you've just been lucky with your child. He could equally have turned out to have an eating issue.

They're not "starving themselves for a chicken nugget", though. They just know they don't like anything they're being offered.

These parents do try every food possible. My parents used to try loads of versions of foods and meals to get me to eat - but if I didn't like the texture, I would gag and if made to continue, vomit.

I never had a chicken nugget until I was in primary school but I still wouldn't eat the nice healthy foods I was offered at home.