My 7 year old daughter hasn't eaten any fruit for 5 years.

[Jushilicious]

I'm at my wits end with my DS (nearly 8) who refuses to eat even a smidgen of fruit. I've taken her to the doctors, dieticians and now I think a psychiatrist may be needed but I really don't want to go there.
It's like she has a phobia of fruit so I've not pushed her or forced her to eat but my other two (9 and 3) eat it happily.
When I say no fruit - I mean none - not bananas, berries, apples -nothing.
I've tried smoothies which she reluctantly tries a sip of and then doesn't want to have any more. It's like she's made a thing out of it 'I don't eat fruit'.
I've yet to meet any other child who doesn't eat any fruit at all. Most fussy kids one type at least.
She is unsurprisingly low on iron and vitamin D and is suffering from hair loss as a result, and constipated since the age of 2. She used to eat everything when she was a baby but slowly stopped and by 2 she stopped fruit altogether - nothing happened but it was a gradual process.
Something drastic needs to happen now - I'm really worried about her health and feel helpless

My DD is like Wizard's DD, she got to 19 without eating a vegetable and only now have we had a break through. Now she has started eating raw spinach and peppers. That's it, nothing else, just raw spinach and peppers, but not green peppers.

I don't eat fruit either, unless it is steed with lots of sugar and has a crumble on top! but I do eat lots of vegetables.

Jush - unlike many other posters, I do think it is a cause for concern. This is a child who not only will not eat fruit, but also won't eat most vegetables, and also limits other things. I agree with you that this is a cause for concern, and her phobias, if getting worse, require help.

It should like it would be easier to list what your DD WOULD eat, rather than what she will not. Can you give some idea of this?

Don't worry about it Jushilicious, just keep giving the two vegetables she will eat.

My son has never eaten fruit. As a baby he weaned onto solids easily, as long as it was veg/meat/carb. He was open to new tastes. But he gagged and vomitted even on hidden puréed fruit. At 8 he was diagnosed with Asperger's and, relieved, I stopped trying. He eats lots of cooked veg, including the 'fruit' ones like peppers and tomatoes. He loves savoury favours but does not in general like sweet, sour or bitter. He makes a few exceptions, and enjoys a couple of sweet biscuits, but would nearly always choose savoury over them.

He is very healthy, and has missed very few days school.

I can't eat much fruit either, tbh. I like it but I can't digest it well. I compensate with lots of green veg, and as many of other colours I can tolerate.

You can make a decent chocolate cake with beetroot or courgette which are good for getting hidden veg into children.

Food therapy for children who have a restricted diet isn't a bad idea at all, but hopefully she'll come round in time.

Definitely hide the fruit and veg in ordinary recipes, e.g carrot purée in the spag bol, avacado purée in cottage pie, courgette purée in the chocolate loaf. There are loads of recipes on line for hiding fruit and veg in ordinary recipes.

If you shun the sun, suffer from milk allergies, or adhere to a strict vegan diet, you may be at risk for vitamin D deficiency. Known as the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D is produced by the body in response to skin being exposed to sunlight. It is also occurs naturally in a few foods including some fish, fish liver oils, and egg yolks and in fortified dairy and grain products.

The not eating fruit is a different problem to vitamin d deficiency. Don't link the two unless you want a big problem.

Jush - unlike many other posters, I do think it is a cause for concern. This is a child who not only will not eat fruit, but also won't eat most vegetables, and also limits other things. I agree with you that this is a cause for concern, and her phobias, if getting worse, require help.

I'm inclined to agree with this. The food fussiness combined with the phobia of birds, both of which you say are getting worse, and the alopecia and general unhealthy appearance that you describe suggest to me this is more than a food issue. Could she be suffering from anxiety? It would be odd if the physical symptoms were a result of no fruit and little veg as I've known children with worse diets look perfectly healthy. Plus as others have said the deficiencies you mentioned are not actually anything to do with lack of fruit and veg.

I don't think a food/diet specialist is going to be that helpful as it sounds like this is deeper than that. Maybe you need to go to the doctor and talk through all the issues you've mentioned, plus any others that might be related, in one appointment then see what they advise.

My son has sensory issues so any vegetable or fruit eaten, we nearly have a parade.
I spoke to the team of psychologists that do the parenting classes for special needs children, they us that our job was to do our best to put healthy food in front our children and that's it.
No following them around, no spoon feeding them, begging them or bribing them, just put the food up in front of them and consider your job done. Life is stressful enough, give them what they will eat and present them with healthy food and just relax.

one of the others mothers had a little boy who would only eat one type of yogurt, one brand and one flavour and nothing else. She was terrified that Aldi would change the packaging and he would starve to death. She found it very hard to accept what the professionals were telling us because she was so stressed over it, but she just left him eat the yogurts and just took the pressure off herself. You should try to do the same, by all means go back to your gp if you are worried but I just wanted to post to say things aren't that bad. Best wishes to you and your daughter.

The dc's cousin has never eaten fruit. "I don't like fruit" she says. She is 13 now!

I realise the hair loss things & bird phobia must be stressful, but lots of kids don't eat barely any fruit or veg.

Below the full list of what my 8yo DS will eat. Which I can live with. Why not post the list for your daughter?

sweets, most biscuits, ice cream, cream, cake.
sausages, ham, maybe bacon, ssg rolls, chicken nuggets
bread, pasta, plain bagel (with butter), plain pizza
glass of milk, squash, water
chips, roasties, crisps
brocoli, baked parnsip, carrots (this yr), yoyos

Porridge might be on that list, too.

My cousin grew up on plain toast for breakfast, brown sauce sandwiches for lunch and tomato soup for tea. Every day. How he survived I don't know but he's in his 30s with kids who eat well now. We're more resilient than we realise I think.

OP, DS2 was extremely fussy. It gets worse if they see of feel you fretting about it. Nutritionist suggested that I make a list of what he will eat, and so long as there was something form each food group in it at each meal, stop fretting.

So, she eats sweetcorn, mushrooms and tomato puree. That's three. Can you puree onions, courgettes and sweet peppers into the spag bol sauce too? That's six. Can you puree sweet potatoes or spinach into curries? Another two.

Are there any whole food carbs she likes - brown basmati rice, wholemeal rolls etc? They have loads of extra vitamins in.

Does she eat baked beans? They count.

Will she drink milk? Add abidec drops. If she likes milkshakes - puree a banana within an inch of its life with full cream milk and a drop of vanilla essence or scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Add ground almonds instead of flour to cakes you make. Flavour with chocolate and vanilla - she'll never notice. Add extra eggs. they all give good sources of vitamins and protein.

There are sneaky ways round it. But genuinely fussy children need a different approach from faddy children. DS turned out to have ASD and no amount of trying him with new foods would ever work. But now, in his own time, he's become curious and eats a massive variety of foods.

I sympathise OP. My DS is pretty similar but with vegetables: literally eats no vegetable whatsoever in whatever form.

I doubt it's any help but I didn't eat veg for years and years.

My ds1 with asd was like this...i made bread and muffins with sweet potato and courgette. Avocado mousse..just pureee it smooth with cocoa powder and honey-can't taste avocado at all. Jelly made with fruit juice. Deep fry veg in tempura batter. Does she like anything like vinegar or salt..ds1 is much more likely to eat stuff doused in salt, ketchup or vinegar. I made my own ketchup with pureed carrot added to it.

I grew up refusing to eat fruit, if any well meaning adult tried to make me eat fruit I'd be physically sick. Fortunately my parents didn't make a big deal of it, And I ate loads of veg. At some point as an adult I made a choice to overcome it and started to eat bananas, and increased it from there. Now I eat a wide variety of fruit but still have to persuade myself to eat a piece of fruit rather than a biscuit etc.

I'd say just relax and don't make a big thing of it if at all possible. Most kids have foods that they won't eat.

Thank you so much everyone for your advice and concern.

She has seen a dietician who suggested more fibrous versions of normal food, so now I always buy brown bread, mostly brown pasta.

She eats:
croissants, brioches, pain au chocolat,
plain yogurt or munch bunch, cheese, eggs on weekend, lamb/chicken curry as long as sauce is not bitty, naan, tortillas, baked beans with jacket potato, sweetcorn, mash potato (but not sweet pot mash), pancakes, margerita pizza, pasta, waffles, chocolate, quavers and wotsits. She won't have anything like weetabix, porridge or muesli as it's too bitty, how she has sweetcorn I don't know!
Packed lunch is a sliced chicken and butter sandwich with a frube, apple juice, and a cheese string. She's big on dairy.
She does it banana bread when i make it but if i put banana in a milkshake then she won't have it.
Writing it down as a list does help so thanks for that suggestion.
I will try fruit lollies, and hiding more veg.
I worry because it's getting worse rather than better. And also she in my middle child so feel that she may have got unintentionally neglected between my 9 yr old and 3 yr old, although we try hard not to do that.
She's also very hyper and loud, does get angry with her siblings but she conforms beautifully at school and does academically really well so we just put it down to her having a lot of energy.
I get stuck for snacks but anyway maybe another trip to the GP is due.
I don't force her and that's why it's been over 5 years. We try to encourage her sometimes to have a lick or nibble which she did today (a 2mm nibble) to water melon and spat it straight out - she then needed water to wash away the taste!

I actually did stop worrying about it until she started losing her hair!

How about aixes smoothie? Sorry if no help. You are correct to be concerned if she isn't eating much fruit or veg.
A dietician might be able to chat to her.
Does she have bad breath and constipation? There could be another way of getting her to eat fruit and more veg that way.

Yes she has constipation in that her poos are like rabbit droppings and sometimes bad breath.
Dietician did see us but was little help, she just suggested high fibre foods etc.

3luckystars I've never heard of sensory disorder. How was it diagnosed?

I would focus on more veg at the moment. You can hide a lot of veg in pasta sauces, pizza sauce and curries.
Use s blender and mix up peppers and courgettes and any other veg you think you can get away with along with the tomatoes.
Have you tried Apple or pear purée in pancake batter?
A previous poster mentioned kinder vital vitamin formula. I don't know what vitamin supplement you give her but a lot of them are chemical based with sweeteners so try the more natural ones like kinder vital.

Jushi, it's possible that she is on the autistic spectrum. Not necessarily, obviously, but really strong resistance to foods and very rigid preferences are a sign. DS2 ate almost nothing but bread and cheese for years and years. And he still has bread and cheese every single day for breakfast. the process of weaning him onto other foods took years. And he still only eats apples through choice, will tolerate banana and eat fresh pineapple if we insist. That's it for fruit, though he drinks orange juice. Much better with veg.

My dd (8) hasn't eaten any fruit OR veg since around 2yrs old.....despite trying everything! I've backed off and she has a vitamin and fruit juice or an innocent smoothie each day....she might have a little veg very-hidden in a pasta sauce but really nothing else! I refuse to let it be an issue.....I give her fish, eggs, cheese etc and hope it will pass one day!

That's reassuring to know skiingmaniac

I thought years ago she may be ADHD or on autism spectrum but she changes her behaviour at school - for autistic kids their behaviour remains wherever they are, from what I've read anyway.
She's awfully polite, and has a good group of friends so I think that rules autism out? I could be wrong though.

Will look up Kinder Vital Formula