TV Alert!!!! My Child Won't Eat . ITV MONDAY 16th June

[MUM23ASD]

ITV: My Child Won't Eat
Monday, 16 June 2008, 9:00PM - 10:00PM

[[http://www.a2mediagroup.com/?c=176&a=23228

Sounds good as dealing with children with phobia about food... not the usual 'fussy eater' stuff we see.
Doesn't mention Autism etc....but may still be relavent?

Here's the bit that rings bells with my DS2 & DS1:

"Mum Sally had no problem moving Bobby from milk to purees, but problems started when she tried to introduce solid food. Everything with lumps in it was rejected.

Every mealtime she cooks for him, only to have the meal rejected: "If I don't offer him a meal I'm never going to get anywhere and there's never going to be an improvement so every day and every mealtime I continue to put a meal in front of him but I know even before I put it down he's not going to eat it."

Sally has tried all manner of strategies suggested by other health professionals to try to get Bobby to eat and break the deadlock, to no avail. She's even tried starving him. Mealtimes are fraught and Sally's terrified Bobby can't survive on just the yoghurt he eats and that he will soon need medical intervention.

At the point of tears and desperation, Sally says: "All I can envisage is Bobby laid in a hospital bed with a drip in his arm because that's the only place I can see it ending.

I don't believe anybody can come in and sort Bobby out and I'm just about ready to give up my fight."

here's the link!

And DD was kept going on nothing but paediasure plus for the 3 months she didn't eat!

They'd have been better to call it something like

"My Child Only Eats Chocolate Spread Sandwiches"

Or

"My baby won't drink milk...so i have had to wean him onto yogurts at 4 weeks old"

(both accurate at some point in my childrens lives!!!)

I looked after a baby the other day who at 18 months eats a huge variety of foods that my boys have never accepted...and it was a blissful experience!

I could have watched her eating all day!!!

My boys have always been very 'texture/smell of food' aware so to watch her eating everything without batting an eyelid was actually fascinating!!!!

I said to her mum...that the baby probably thought she was in a zoo...the way i was watching her!!!

I don't particularly care about the title of the programme. I'm just glad frankly its being shown on a main channel and not stuck on BBC4.

I have read the other link and can certainly relate to it.

BTW my son has never eaten chocolate in his entire life.

I will watch this programme on Monday night with great interest. I was previously given the same sort of advice that the expert has put forward and we are visited monthly by a lady from Community nursing who has experience in dealing with such problems.

My son has food issues (and likewise the problems started after weaning to solid food) and am glad this issue is being raised. I think its also called perseverant eating.
My brother was also a perseverant eater so I think there is also a genetic element attached to such problems.

DS is eating better now than he ever has (he eats chicken and ham now albeit in cubes) and now eats some hot food sometimes (albeit garlic breadsticks and pita bread) but its been a long, hard and downright difficult struggle to get to this point. I would not wish this on anyone and I have every sympathy with parents who try and fail to get their children to try different things.

Food refusal/phobia is extremely difficult to deal with both for child and parents. It has social implications too in restaurants and at school. Its consequences can be far reaching.
I still remember reading about that 22 year old man; all he ate was cheese sandwiches. His story made the papers. Its probably too late for him to be properly helped but hopefully programmes like this will improve awareness of such problems.

I will watch this programme with much interest, my DD who is 6 can only cope with puree food. She doesn't mind actually the actual eating, its the chewing and swallowing she can't do. I would kill to see my DD eat a chocolate bar

i'm glad most of you will be watching it... i have no idea if its any good...like attila said...great to have someting on ITV ...and for me- i am sick of the 'SuperNanny/Celeb Chef' programmes making me feel so guilty about the unhealthy food my boys eat- and even in the past mumsnetters telling me how easy it would be to stop my eldest eating mars bars by going to the healthfood shop and buying him a museli & carob bar....personally, with ASD eating probs i would rather my child live on jaffacakes than leave every plate of 'healthy food' untouched!

However, I know NOTHING about CP etc so don't know how this programme could help- as its about the phobias about food rather than the difficulties processing food itself.

Its like my friends son is a coeliac - and others have intollerances...which agin limit their diet- and agin mean that tthe healthy '5 a day' type message isn't always that easy to put in place-

If this programme at least educates people like my inlaws that my son is not the only child who at 3 gagged at the sight of certain foods. He is 11 now and eats a repetitive and less than ideal diet (no fruit and only veg is carrots 3 times a week) ...yet i have seen him grow and he is bright- so i now tend to focus on the food he does eat rather than fretting about what he doesn't....HOWEVER at age 3 i thought he'd never eat what could be considered a 'family meal'

i'll give you an example....i made bolegnase the other night.

I managed to add parsnip, leek, mushrooms , apple! and carrots (whizzed up to a fine crumb in my processor) to the basic sauce of whizzed up tomatoes, herbs and onion......which i added to the minced beef which i had also whizzed up so it was very finely chopped....to which i finally added a large handful of grated cheddar cheese.

So ...no lumps...no visable veg...no visable herbs.

But a meal that practically must have lost any nutritional value in all the processing and extended cooking (as if veg aren't soft- will be rejected)

so...meal eaten by all

resembled baby food...but at least for once we all ate the same meal...at the table....without too much anxiety from ds2 & 3

But nutritional...well i doubt it.

Maybe someone on here can reassure us about the vitamins. I'm just sick and tired of being told on TV shows to serve veg thats barely cooked- to retain the goodness.

Also my boys drink coke, and very sweet milky cups of tea ...and lets not forget the blackcurrant fruitshoots (that everyone on here always moan about)...and bannana Yazoo milkshakes

.....and the times i have been critsised for that are numerous- but that is all ds2 will drink.

My dad is from the eat or starve generation and whilst he will eat most things they often have to be mashed to oblivion - if we go over their house for Sunday lunch there is Grandad mashing his food, DS with virtual puree drowned in gravy and dd who is going through a tricky toddler thing of only eating sausages. Ironically my husband will eat absolutely anything anywhere anytime. Still like MUM23 said I'd rather my child ate a plate of Jaffa Cakes than left a plate of healthy food untouched - but don't tell him i said that!

Ah yes riven - with the tube you'll be able to very smug about dd's diet. It will take some of the pressure off though - dd had an ng for a year and that was the one good thing about it. Plus the pump mean't not having to get up in the night - except when she kinked the tube and I fed the bed lol!

dd drinks the chocolate yazoo but otherwise just milk and water. So I'm smug on the one hand but frustrated on the other because to have her have fruit even if it was just juice would be great.

There's plenty of judging going on on the other thread

Saggar....pray do tell what other thread!!!

Tis here

I hought it was this one !!!!
(so have posted in support of the one that everyone is ganging up on (as i like to do - cos i hate it when people get run down when they are trying their best)

OMG - mum23 - just read that thread and have to say I feel like driving to that kids school with a pack of sarnies, or at least a jaffa cake.

well yes seuss, if they can put on all that fancy stuff, why not a basic jacket potato or cheese sandwich option?

DS is I think at the very fussy end of fussy rather than phobic, but will try and catch the program.

I guess a jacket spud just doesn't look impressive enough on the menu - and don't even mention fish fingers!

My ds has some issues with texture but covers the food groups fairly well considering. I was delighted when he started eating jam sandwiches! (On our bleakest days I count this as a fruit portion...kidding )

thats my thoughts too...all this stuff about inclusive education and yet when it comes to meals there is no accomodation of 'sensory eating probs'

I have to be honest...threads like that toatally 'iss me off...as all they end up doing is making the person who needs help feel worse.

I tend to say my bit- i NEVER argue...i just stop posting on a thread if it gets a bit heated directed at me!!!

lol Seuss - I'm wondering whether shop bought carrot cake or carrot chocolate (yes it exists and is quite nice!) would count as a vegetable portion .

I would never dare to post about my DS's typical diet on the main boards here, as I know I would get lynched.