Food Phobia

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My son (D) is 4½ years old & still on the waiting list (12 to 18 month waiting list here in Denmark! ) to be tested although it seems probable that he is an Aspie. He has had a problem with food ever since I moved him from pureed food to solid food as a baby. His very limited diet usually consists of french fries, chocolate, ice cream, lemonade & milk. I put vitamin suppliments into his milk. Occassionally he'll decide he likes a particular brand of biscuit, savoury cracker or potato crisp, eat them for a few weeks & then go off them. He won't even try sweets or cake. Over the years I have had repeated visits to the doctor about this problem. While still in UK, we even had a health visitor visit our home once a week for a year to help get him to eat. Nothing worked. He won't even touch a new food. Early last year I decided to take the hard line approach & told him that he eats "real" food or nothing. He went for 3 weeks without eating. It was then, combined with some of his other behaviours, that I realised that this was more serious than him just being a fussy eater so I took him to the doctor.

About 4 weeks ago D got a very bad middle ear infection & was very ill. While ill he stopped eating altogether, with the exception of chocolate. He's still drinking milk. Our doctor told us to just let him eat what he wants, even if it is chocolate. That was 2 weeks ago. D has lost a lot of weight, is pale with dark circles under his eyes. He is going back to the doctor next week but I was hoping someone here might be able to offer some suggestions to help get D to face his food phobia.

If this happened when you switched him to real food, I think there is a real possibility that it is the *textures* of certain foods that offend him. I was like this as a child, in fact I found some food textures so disgusting they even nauseated me. I would do similar things you describe (avoid food altogether for long periods if there was nothing in the house that appealed to me.) I would not eat any meats at all (Still don't), but found anything with a "creamy" or "crunchy" texture apealling. Also, my grand father found that I would eat grapes when they were pealed and cut in half...Mum wouldn't do this, and when she gave me grapes I wouldn't eat them.

Has your child ever been tested for food allergies? I understand your child may be malnourished, but could they also be allergy shiners?

only a tea spoon of new food at a time and just the food he eats normal portion and don't say anything.
my daughter only ate marmite sandwiches and chocolate for years now she eats really healthy food and had a vegitable stir fry today.
She is 11yrs but i still use the tea spoon amount of new food method and put a bit more to one side and most of the time she does'nt touch it.
Then all of a sudden she will eat it and ask for more.

Hopefully you can get your kid off junk food becouse healthy food tastes horrible when all he is getting is a cemical fix.
It took me years and also i had to go and see consultants at the hospital and they gave her a diet sheet and little by little now she is eating the right food.

My son is a fussy eater too. The OT that we had working with us advised us to introduce only one new food at at time. Even then, she suggested that we only introduce a miniscule amount (approximately a quarter of a teaspoon) each day. We're currently trying to get my son to try milk. So what we do is try to get him to take a single sip each day. We've been trying this for a few weeks now... still no luck yet though. Even for 'normal' kids, she said that it takes about 10-15 times to get them to try something new.

Thanks for your input, Immortal. He does seem to prefer dry crispy food to "wet" food like spaghetti. He's very particular about the texture & appearance of the fries, ie. they must straight cut & they must be on the crispy side. Although he does like the creaminess of chocolate & icecream.

I see you're in Denmark too! This isn't about food though...
My son has HFA, and we waited and waited to get him diagnosed. In retrospect, I would have gotten my son diagnosed through Center for Autisme, if I had known it was possible at the time. Ithin it costs around 5000dkr. and can be done within a couple of weeks. A lot of money, but all that waiting is hell. (and means your son won't get the help he needs )
Good luck..

Hej Katrine! We are near Grenå. Thank you for that info. I didn't know about Center for Autisme. I'll definitely have a look into that.

Check on the net! They have really good seminars too! They are in Virum, I think. Again, good luck.

Katrine, we looked up Center for Autisme on the net. They have an office in Århus. They charge kr 23.500 for the examination + kr 500 for the consultation afterwards. My hubby is going to phone them today though (I'm still at Sprog Skole) & see if we can get our Kommune to pay seeing as we have such a long wait going the regular route. Thank you again for this.

WOW that's a lot of money! I wouldn't have suggested it if I had known. How sure are you he has AS - what is your son like - and what approach have you taken to help him in his everyday life? I'm thinking it would be a good idea to start visually structuring his day to see whether it helps or not. The waiting list situation is SO bad.
Feel free to pm if you want.

I'm certain he has AS. He exhibits most of the characteristics I'm reading on this site. Last year we took him to our GP because of his "phobia" to food & he was walking around saying that he was so sad. At the time he'd been for 3 weeks without food. We were refered to a paediatrician who visited us in our home, as a visitor, & spent quite some time observing D. We talked about his obsessions with spinning things & obsessive fascination with things like pylons, windmills & fans as well as his amazing ability with numbers etc. I'd always simply regarded my son as a bit of an eccentric child & put it down to his seemingly exceptional high intelligence. This was followed up with a meeting with a paediatric psychiatrist & the paediatrician. It was at this meeting that they told me it was probable that D has a development disorder in the autism spectrum. I didn't know much about development disorders at the time & was totally shocked by their opinion! I started reading up on it. I've read other parents' experiences with their AS children & it's been like reading a diary of our own experiences.

This last Monday my son's kindergarten phoned me to come & fetch him as he was feeling so "sad". He's now been for over 4 weeks without anything except chocolate to eat. He's only drinking about ½ a litre of milk a day & nothing else. He has lost a lot of weight, has dark circles around his eyes, is getting dizzy & is very very pale. His food phobia is so bad at the moment that it is seriously compromising his health. We now have an appointment with our area psychologist & a psychiatric nurse will be visiting my son at his kindergarten next week. It looks hopeful that D will be pushed up the waiting list for testing because he has deteriorated so drastically in the last few weeks.

I've just realised that I didn't answer all your questions, Katrine.

I now explain very carefully & clearly to D what is planned for the day ahead. We try to keep to a routine. If I know we will be doing something out of normal routine, I explain exactly what will be happening & when. D has a special knack for remembering & understanding dates so I make use of this, eg. I'll tell him that on day number 3 we will be doing XYZ. I will keep reminding him up until the event. I've only just discovered the method of using visual charts/pictures. I've been compiling some charts & we'll start introducing these at home & at his kindergarten to see if this helps.

My son has never had severe problems with food, so I can't help you with that, but it sounds absolutely terrible!
My experience with waiting lists in Denmark is that you have to phone, mail, and generally PUSH to get anywhere, which goes against the grain (for me at least) but seems to be the only thing that works. You can't be too polite or hold back, but have to really communicate how bad the situation is.
Visual schedules (charts/pictures) really helped my son - like a lot of autism spectrum kids, he thinks very visually, and can remember the infomation very quickly, which means he can use his energy on playing, communication ect. The visual schedules meant that we could be more flexible in our every day life, as long as he had been prepared properly. Center for autisme has a good book called "hverdags pædagogik" (I think) by Maria Veddel, which is inexpensive and really good. For pictures "clip art" is OK, there is a big online collection, it saves having to draw or buy an expensive system like boardmaker.