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?!?

Yep. They really do exist.

Yep. These children exist. I know of a child that ate nothing but apple tart and custard and the odd cheese slice for THREE years. No joke

Correct.

Yes - because "real food" often varies massively every time you try it, which means you don't know whether (using an example of mine) the banana you're about to eat is going to be firm, or squishy, or sweet or stringy.

Whereas a processed chicken nugget or a piece of white Warburtons bread is exactly the same, no matter what. It's safe. It's reliable. You know what to expect and what it will taste like.

As an adult with autism (but not diagnosed with ARFID) there are plenty of foods I still won't touch as I don't trust them to taste or feel safe to me. So I'd rather not eat at all than risk gagging or being sick.

That is correct.

Absolute ignorance. Mind boggling.

Put it this way, today I went out for lunch with DH. I had a white bread baguette with prawns and fries. It came with salad but I wouldn't touch the salad because I didn't know if it would be a "safe" texture and I didn't want to gag, or (worse) have to run off to be sick in the loo, so I didn't eat it.

@AllYouGottaDoIsJustMeetMeAtTheApt to be honest with you my child was very very unwell and ate very little but we never thought that foods such as chicken nuggets would be the answer. I never wanted dc to have them and they were never offered as a good solution by the health professionals. They advocated for what we did and in the end it worked over many years.

I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was in my thirties.

I'm glad my parents didn't have your ridiculous attitude.

Believe her.

So frustrating isn’t it? I’m in my 40s and have never outgrown. It tried all sorts of counselling CBT even a psychotherapist to no avail.

It was only registered as an official condition about 12 years ago, so that's why you'd never heard of it. Doesn't mean it didn't exist though.

I firmly believe how ‘fussy’ a child is at eating is down to luck most of the time, and nothing to do with parenting.

I’m pleased, but if your child would have refused other foods, you would have tried other things and possibly landed on chicken nuggets. It wouldn’t matter whether you didn’t want your child to have them or not, if they refused everything else, you would have given them in desperation.

Some will eat one of these, or go between a couple of them. Plain pasta, plain rice, plain potatoes in different forms. There can usually be no touching of foods or "wet" foods so nothing with sauce or gravy. No mixed foods, so not chicken in rice but might eat plain chicken from one plate and plain rice from the other. Nothing with unusual textures like melted cheese or gratins. No spices or pepper. For some children it is about "safe" foods and for others it's about texture and feelings of the food. Arfid is a very limiting and upsetting illness and is often accompanied by low iron and vitamin b12.

Okay, so obviously, we know that ASD food issues and medical conditions DO exist.

But toddlers also commonly go through finicky and unreasonable periods, which parents can make worse by taking too seriously, either anxiously over-catering or forcefully demanding the child comply.

I'm older and personally, the "finicky" scenario is one I've seen far more frequently than some kind of true medical issue. (I also raised a kid who is on the autism spectrum and had absolutely NO food issues. So just to note, ASD related food issues would only apply to a subset of children with ASD).

And of course, most of us probably would prefer "beige food" and chips and juice, to the whole foods that are nutritious. I don't know about the UK but in the US, fully 70% of adults are overweight and the health issues from it are staggering. There are many people out there who get used to that kind of poor nutrition from the start. That exists too.

And of course, either way, the parents usually don't like being contradicted, which may be because they know best but may also be because they just think they do.

But yeah, if it's somebody else's kid, probably best to stay out of it, unless it seems dangerous OR you're in a position with them where speaking your mind is allowable, as a sister might be. (However, OP has said she didn't say anything to her sister).

i understand if you have never experienced ARFID before then your sisters situation is really difficult to understand, because putting yourself in someone elses shoes is hard if you have never seen the situation before. i truly understand that, and i want to say my thoughts compassionately because i truly want to help you understand what she might be going through.

when i was a baby my mum was told by the health visitor "just put food in front of her and she'll have to eat it." this was when i could eat one single food. my mum tried this, and i didnt eat it. i couldnt. last year i was diagnosed with ARFID after having years and years of struggling with eating and self hatred. i couldnt go out with friends because i couldnt eat anything, i felt like i was a burden on everyone around me as they all had to make sure anything i was invited to i could manage because the lack of calories i had make me fatigued all the time. ive had people laugh at my packed lunches all my life. ive missed out on multiple opportunities to go abroad with college, and even to visit oxford univeristy, because i cant eat anything other than my few safe foods. i cant move out for university because i have to be with my parents who support me with my eating. ive missed out on so much because of ARFID.

we've known i was autistic from a very early age but as there is no support for or understanding of ARFID, we didnt know i had it until just last year. my mum was shamed by doctors, other mums, and even my school for not feeding me the right things. but the truth was i couldnt eat anything. even now at 17, i can only eat 10 to 12 different foods. they are all beige foods. after years of both me and my mum being shamed and ridiculed for my diet, i spend every day thinking "any food is fuel." so even if that means all i can manage is half a slice of toast on a morning, ive fueled my body. even if it isnt one of the super healthy and green breakfasts you see on instagram, its fuel. fuel is good.

even if all her son can eat is beige food, it is fuel. i would rather eat a good amount of my safe foods of toast, biscuits and halloumi sticks, than eat tiny amounts of green foods that can make me gag and even make me sick. even if it doesnt look the healthiest, your sisters child is being fed and fuelled, and that should always be the most important take away from situations like these.

i hope my story can help people understand that ARFID is a real, painful thing to deal with, and that not everything is as it seems. a kid eating mostly crisps and bread may look like a badly behaved kid with a "bad" parent, but actually its a kid who is fed and fuelled with a supportive parent who understands their needs. sending lots of hugs op xx

Growing up, my brother would eat:

Scrambled eggs
Toast
Chips
Mashed potato
Roast potatoes
Fishfingers

And very, very occasionally, a sausage. But this was a rare event.

Not a single fruit or vegetable would cross his lips. Nor meat. I can remember my mum forcing a bit of chicken into his mouth and yelling at him "CHEW!" He was crying and trying to spit it out.

Brother is now in his 40s, a vegetarian, cooks from scratch - even his own pasta which quite honestly, I cba to do! - and eats a wide-ranging diet that's super healthy. He did some iron-man challenge or other, which just underlines how fit and healthy he is now.

I have two autistic DC who - luckily - both eat a decent range of healthy food, including fruit and veg. But both of them, DS in particular, will only eat what they eat. Getting DS to even sniff anything new takes months, quite literally. Months. Taking a bite or trying a new food is a very, very rare event.

I'm delighted as recently I've managed to get DS to try garlic bread and he loves it. We managed that as he loves bread and often tells me how much he loves bread. He smelt garlic bread cooking a few times and declared it smelt delicious. I reminded him how much he loves bread, and said that he'd probably really love it as he does love bread..... (shameless leaning on his own self-declared interests....) DS is very proud of loving bread (don't ask me why 😂) so he consented to trying it. DS is 15 years old. I know garlic bread isn't high up on the list of foods that are good to eat but it might help him to diversify his tastes to eventually consider other foods. Any win is a win!

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-7-died-undiagnosed-eating-31872750.amp

ARFID can literally be fatal so no way would I judge parents resorting to anything to get their child to eat

Most of us wouldn't prefer beige food. No one else in my house does. We all prefer home-cooked, delicious meals full of veg and meat and flavour. We are a house of foodies. Even now we don't have freezer or fried foods. Our "beige" eater eats fairly healthy but very limited types of food.

I'm lucky enough to have a pretty good eater and we eat fairly decently at home. I do occasionally serve fish fingers or another breaded fish (with sweet potato mash, carrots and peas). But my daughter had her very first ever chicken nuggets at nursery! I suppose I could have told them she wasn't allowed to eat the same as everyone else that day, but I'm sure she would still have ended up trying them somewhere. Actually, she went to a birthday party a couple of months ago where the mother served chicken nuggets for the kids (the family is Eritrean and she - probably rightly - assumed that most of three year olds wouldn't have been interested in the traditional food she had also made!). So far it hasn't occurred to her that we could actually make them at home although she will sometimes request them if we eat out.

I forgot to mention that something that helped with DD was her discovery that she really liked mustard. Her being able to put mustard on various things moved from them from "yuk, no way" to "OK, I suppose". I sometimes wonder if condiments/spices (as with saag aloo in the above story) might be a way out for some children. They won't necessarily see them as "a new food", more a "way to change food".

As I'm typing this I remember my sister, 7 years older than me, who was also a very fussy eater, but HP Sauce made some things go down better.

Not suggesting sriracha with everything, but maybe this could be worth a try for some people. (Soy sauce springs to mind for some reason.)

Food issues are so complex it’s not as easy as saying don’t give them beige. I didn’t have anything that wasn’t home made as a child but pretty much lived on mashed potato and gravy from about two to four. My Grandparents used to think I would waste away as I was so thin.
I eat loads of different foods now but there are still a lots I cannot eat or could try to but would end up being sick. It’s not just particular foods either, I can get put off by thinking about where something is from. I really struggle to eat sandwiches that someone else has made for example, parties as a child were awful as most of the 80’s Mums wouldn’t let me have any cake or crisps if I didn’t eat a sandwich first and if the sandwich was egg or ham I’d be sick.
A lot of my issues have been passed down from my Mum who had them passed on from her Mum. I’ve tried really hard not to do the same to my children. I’ve struggled to feed them foods I hate like eggs, bananas and the dreaded sandwiches.
I’ve never had the standard chicken nugget in the house though, I can’t stomach the smell and I don’t think nutrition wise they are worth me battling through the nausea for.
There was a great programme on in the early 2000s with a child psychologist Dr Tanya Byron who helped families with children who had food/sleep/behaviour issues. There were children who only ate things like certain brands of yogurt or only blended food who were happily trying other things by the end of the show. Often there was some trauma or stress they’d picked up on from the parent’s behaviour that was part of the problem.

Yep - I eat much better if I can have mayonnaise as a dip. I won't eat most veggies on their own but the mayo disguises the texture and helps "dull" any extremes in taste (like sourness, for example).

I'm nowhere near perfect and there are still plenty of things I can't bring myself to eat, but sauces and dips are a big help - I know for others it's the total opposite though and they can't imagine touching them.

Toren Wolf is a young lad on TikTok with autism who talks a lot about ARFID.

My child has arfid. She ate a wonderful range of foods when we were weaning. Then one day she just stopped. She started refusing to eat. She started gagging in a way that was absolutely horrific if we strongly encouraged her to even try one bite of something. She was losing weight even as she grew.

Beige food, butter, cream, and even chocolate spread are all things her medical team recommended to keep her fed.

As she has aged, her list of safe foods has slowly expanded. Our biggest priority is still keeping up her weight.