Blinded by his diet

Oh God I'm another who had a faddy, fussy eater. First child ate everything, 2nd child continually spat out pureed vegetables when I started to wean him, this was a sign of things to come. Throughout childhood shunned vegetables and a lot of fruit, until he discovered mangoes. Now eats everything, he and girlfriend cook a lot of Asian type stir fry foods which include vegetables, both very health conscious.

White food is pretty unappetising, but as others have said this new item does sound extreme and can't help wondering if there's more to it than the diet issue.

No doubt this is a complex case. Eating disorders are notoriously difficult to deal with. Mental health issues, sadly, always are. Rarely any sort of quick or easy fix.

Thanks Bradfordlass. There are always those quick to judge, without knowing the full facts.
His poor parents, not only have to deal with their son's mental and physical problems, but they also have to cope with a judgemental public.

Marydoll - a voice of sanity after all the 'parents are to blame' knee-jerk reactions.

This poor young man has had mental problems for many years so it's not simply a case of 'poor diet'.

His parents have done their best but he cannot tolerate certain textures, tastes and colours.

What should his parents have done, tied him down and forced him?

Still, the gaudy shame and blame headlines make a change from, "Obesity costing the NHS a Fortune" !!

Autistic people often have aversions to food and typically prefer beige foods. My autistic grandchild has never eaten fruit or vegetables but neither did my non-autistic daughter until she grew up.
Another daughter ate a very restricted diet but grew to 5’ 10 on beans on toast.
No parent can or should battle over food. Faddy eaters are almost always fit and healthy.

We know a man who has eaten nothing all his life except beans on toast. Even on Christmas Day. He has just taken over his father-in-law's building firm and is one of the fittest men around.

His wife is a trained chef!

I agree GagaJo and Marydoll and others, there will definitely be an underlying condition here, such as autism.
It’s so easy to make judgements on here without knowing anything of eating disorders/autism, and posters jump in with both feet and blame parents.
Poor boy and poor parents too!

At that time he was diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency and put on supplements, but he did not stick with the treatment or improve his poor diet."

I missed this bit of the report.

I'd say it lets the GP off the hook, and rightly so.

It's the old question of taking some personal responsibility, yes?

humptydumpty sounds as if the proper procedures were followed.

If the child or parents did attend mental health services appointments then we can only assume advice wasn't followed appointments were missed or he somehow slipped through the net.

I feel it is unfair to put this on a GP. The poor GP - a ten minute appointment sets the wheels in motion and the patient has to cooperate (or not) if other services are involved.

According to the case report link, "He was prescribed nutritional supplements that corrected his deficiencies and was referred to mental health services for his eating disorder. " (though it isn't clear at what age)

Here is a link to the statement from the University of Bristol where the original news item came from.
It does explain things more fully:
www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/august/diet-study.html

This boy in question had an eating disorder and it’s probable it’s not the parents fault People can be quite judgemental when drip fed some emotive headlines in the media I m sure he could have been given vitamins tablets to make up for deficiencies I m sure there is much more to this story than the reports have written

My own son was a very very picky eater from the age of 2 he refused all dairy apart from milk on his cereal He refused all vegetables except a mouthful of carrot and would not touch fruit and to the person who says you don’t give in it’s certainly not always that easy However my now 50 year old son takes part in Ironman and super Ironman competitions he runs up and down mountain tracks and thinks nothing to a 70 mile cycle ride on a Sunday morning His longest run was 12/13 hours he has strength, and endurance he still eats barely any fruit or veg although his wife did get him to try some sweet corn not sure whether he still eats it or just bravely tried it ?

Humpty, it is not an unfair comment.

Where children are concerned it is the GP's job to look and listen, to what is not being said as well as what is being said. From the report he asked the child what he ate, was told and told him to eat a wider range of foods. Didn't he hear the warning bells clanging? Did he arrange follow up visits to monitor the child and, if necessary, refer him on? Seemingly not, otherwise the hild would have seen other specialists or been referred to Social Services.

I appreciate the pressures GPs are under, but that cannot disguise the fact that just as some GPs are brilliant others are pretty poor.

DH visited his GP in his early 60s complaining of being tired the whole time. His GP's response was to say that it was because he was still commuting up to London every day.

I was not happy with this, took some advice and persuaded DH to see another GP in the practice. This GP as DH told the tale, observed that he was overweight and had (treated) high blood pressure. As soon as DH stopped talking, he turned round, picked up a small piece of equipment and put it on DH's finger and within a minute told him he had Type 2 diabetes. That is the difference between a good GP and poor GP.

This child was failed by his GP. and probably his parents.

Doctors just send the child to a psychologist who in turn does nothing to help.

I think that's a rather unfair comment, M0nica - we don't know all the ins and outs of this case; presumably since he was 14 when he saw the GP, his parents would have accompanied him, and maybe they didn't reveal all there was to know about his eating?

According to the BBC, "The adolescent had seen his GP at the age of 14 because he had been feeling tired and unwell. At that time he was diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency and put on supplements, but he did not stick with the treatment or improve his poor diet."

The GP wouldn't have referred him if he did not know the full background.

Hard to believe my son existed on Ready Brek three meals a day until he was at university. When his girlfriend persuaded him onto a proper diet. No harm whatsoever done.

Has the ones who cticise the parents ever tried to get food down a child when they really don't want to swallow it?

Any GP whose response to this problem is just to tell the child that he should eat a wider variety of foods, without, looking into why he isn't already eating them and where alarm bells were not sent jangling when he heard just how restricted his diet was is quite frankly a GP who is not doing their job. Surely the child should have been referred to an Eating Disorders Clinic. That is what they are therefore;
children with disordered eating habits, not just those with bulimia and anorexia.

If he came from a completely dysfunctional family than Social Services should have been involved in the problem. I am, again, surprised that the GP did not refer him to Social Services, when it became clear that the parents, for whatever reason, were clearly not up to dealing with the problem.

It sounds to me as if one of the main problems with this case is a careless and neglectful GP.

Thank you Marydoll.

Why are we so critical? This is an awful thing to happen.

There are eating disorder specialists, who offer staged intervention (help the parents with, I should have said).

It's easy to blame the parents, but there is a lot more to this story, than we know about

I suspect there is.

What is a worry though is that he is now blaming doctors for his diet.

If he'd been referred to a dietitian/nutritionist they would only have advised him to eat more fruit and vegetables for sure and may have suggested his parents incorporated lots of pureed vegetables in sauces, etc, to make them less obvious.

No doctor has the power to tell anyone to eat broccoli and tomatoes, etc, do they? They can advise and warn but parental responsibility cannot be overlooked.

With hindsight and his blindness there is a lesson to be learned BUT we cannot blame the medical profession unless they detected an eye problem when he was 14.

The point was made above that eye strain from close up looking at screens every day for long periods of time ought to be a worry too.

I think the younger generation, the under 35-40s, who grew up with home computers may reap the whirlwind of the social media/gaming online obsessions. So many children don't move much and are entertained by gazing at a screen for long periods of time. I know many grandparents have expressed concern about their own children and grandchildren via Gransnet.

According to the Telegraph:
'he suffered from primary school age from a rare eating disorder, avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder, Sufferers become sensitive to taste, texture, smell or appearance of certain foods.'
I have heard of children refusing to eat certain colours of food, but never heard of one who refused all junk food and only ate fresh fruit and vegetables, but I am sure someone is able to prove me wrong.

This is scary but I don't feel like we have been given the full story. My step son survived on really crappy stuff. I used to make really healthy meals and he would bin them and then end up eating something else. I had to buy other stuff in as he wouldn't have eaten anything at all. He went back to live with his mam and god knows what she gave him as my husband said she could never cook and she also lived on next to nothing. It's all learned from parents. My kids all ate well and I have two strapping lads now and also my daughter is healthy and well. I feel like this lad in question must have had some other health problems as well.

Apparently the boy in question has had an eating disorder since childhood.
I taught a few autistic children, who would only eat white foods.
I remember a child going into meltdown one day, because his mum had put a piece of ham in his lunch box. You couldn't begin to imagine how distressed he was because there was pink food in his lunch box.
It's easy to blame the parents, but there is a lot more to this story, than we know about.

I’ve always thought the underlying issue with my ex neighbours daughter springs from the mums OCD regarding cleanliness and perfection. When the girl was a baby she was obsessed with her getting dirty or messed up and as I recall tended to feed her “clean” food rather than her getting baby food stains on her furniture or clothes.

As teenagers (I omitted I was referring to my own children and their love of fast food.)