6 year old poor appetite, suspected IBD

[Nome11]

Hi, my 6 year old is awaiting hospital tests for inflammatory bowel disease following a raised calprotectin level (267, so not scarily high) in his stool sample. His appetite has always been poor, but now I'm wondering how to approach this at meal times. This morning he left half his breakfast and last night he left half his tea; usually I'd try to encourage him to eat more on his plate but now I'm wondering if it's the right thing to do if he may have an underlying condition affecting how full he gets. I don't want meal times to have negative associations for him but equally I don't want his weight to drop off - he isn't underweight but there isn't really anything spare for him to lose. On weekends we try and do regular small meals but that isn't possible when he is in school. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

I wouldn't push him too hard or he could end up with an unhealthy association with food, and if it already makes him feel "blurgh" then I'd stick to letting him eat what/when he fancies. If you're worried about weight then I'd aim for full fat dairy (if he can tolerate it), and high calorie, low density foods - all the stuff that you'd find on a bodybuilders diet is good (there's plenty on good), lean protein, avocado, nuts, dried fruit, oily fish etc

Thank you, I never thought to try body builder type diets. He'll basically eat anything, just not that much of it so high quality nutrition is what I'm after.

Hi. My 10 year old was diagnosed with IBD in August. He'd always been a very poor eater since he was a toddler and now think it was probably related. I think all you can do is offer food with no pressure.
Since he diagnosis and starting treatment his appetite has increased hugely and he's trying new foods.
There is an excellent Facebook group if you are on there : Uk Parents of kids with IBD, very supportive and helpful with advice. Hope all the tests go well and you get some answers 🙂

Thanks for your reply, I'm pleased your son's appetite has improved so much since diagnosis. In a weird way I'm sort of hoping Arthur does get diagnosed with IBD because it would explain so much and we could hopefully improve things for him moving forwards. Day to day he's not massively affected but he does have to run to the toilet a lot and gets terrible facial rashes with no cause we've managed to find. He's one of the smallest and slightest in his class and gets physically tired quite easily.

Could you try some meal replacement shakes like pediasure maybe?

Have you tried taking him off dairy? That’s the biggest cause of my IBS diarrhoea / sudden need to go to the loo and eczema.

The elevated calprotectin makes it more likely to be IBD than IBS though.

Thanks everyone, I don't really want to alter his diet until IBD is confirmed (or not, as the case may be.) I do strongly suspect dairy does affect him but I sort of see it like a coeliac diagnosis - people have to keep gluten in their diet until coeliacs is confirmed and I don't potentially want Arthur's tests to come back ok if dairy has a role to play in making him unwell, if that makes sense. I'll look into meal replacement shakes as well, thanks.