I think this family looks podgy, pasty and generally unhealthy, yet...

[Anna8888]

the article describes the girl as being "in perfectly good health".

Opinions?

my dd eats anything.

Ds (ASD) struggles with food issues and we work on a daily basis trying to increase his diet.

I still count myself lucky. My friends ASD ds is so food phobic he has to be fed by tube. Their daily aim is to get their ds to put 3 items of food in his mouth. He has had to have professional support from birth as right from the start he could not feed.

but maybe if your child hadn't eaten a thing for 5, 6,7 days, and you knew they would eat a mars bar, you'd give them the mars bar. it's not true that children won't starve themselves. some children will, even ones without ASD. food phobia is a genuine mental illness, it's very upsetting when people are patting themselves on the back for being such great no-nonsense parents, congratulating themselves because their child has never had to have a tube surgically implanted into their stomach because they simply will not eat enough to keep them alive.

Agree with Comma. People do die from eating disorders; it's not funny.

There is a lot of wisdom in the post which pointed out that a child phobic about chocolate and only eating broccoli would never making it into the papers or onto national television.

I also suspect that the chocolate-eating child's family would have to fit a certain profile: either very obviously uneducated working class or (just possibly) unusually upper class. As long as they fit into the Not Like Us category.

By the way, children with food phobias will eat chocolate because it is easy to eat. It dissolves in your mouth and goes down very easily. Think about it. It's not rocket science.

Absolutely Tiggi. dd was weaned on chocolate buttons and quavers - because she didn't physically have to swallow but she could get used to having the sensation of something in her mouth.