Food Issues

Post Reply New Topic

My 16 yr old AS daughter has food issues that are frustrating. I am not really looking for advice this time. I just need to vent. To explain: after age three, she stopped eating foods she normally ate. Because of the way something smells, tastes, or the texture or color bothers her she will genuinely try to eat it but then either during dinner or hours later she will throw it up. She would cry because she was afraid she'd get in trouble for getting sick. She said she tried to hold it in, but she thought obsessively about the way it smelled, tasted, etc. and it made her vomit. I talked with her pediatrician and she's not concerned b/c she's otherwise healthy. She will eat salad, but it has to be iceburg lettuce. She eats a lot of carbs and she loves fruit. (We tried a gluten-free diet with no changes whatsoever.) She will eat a PB&J sandwich every day of her life if I let her. She won't eat red meat or broccoli so I have to give her iron supplements every day. I've tried other iron-rich foods, but she doesn't eat them either. Over the years, we tried the whole "she'll eat what I fix or else she doesn't eat" approach. This did not work! She didn't eat and lost 10 lbs!! Her doctor thought she was anorexic until I told her what we were trying at home to get her to eat better. I gave up...basically, I fix one meal. She has to try each thing (sometimes this just means licking it)...after that, if she's still hungry, SHE has to get up and fix herself a sandwich with a glass of milk. She gained back the weight and she has more energy and is happier. For years I had to listen to others criticize how I was handling this issue. It is nice to know I can vent about it here without worry of more unsolicited advice from people who know how challenging AS eaters can be. Thanks.

Good vent. I suspect my family would share similar stories about me.

Hi. I have newly discovered the "concept" of AS. What suprised me most as I started to learn about it, was how my social and other issues was somehow related to my food issues.

Starting from about age 4, I rejected more and more foods and for most of my life I ate only one kind of sandwich. The bread had to be from the same bakery, preferrably 1 day old, cause I didn't like the fresh baked texture, between I would have a thin filling of kind of a chocolate-nut cream, but not too thick, cause then I would feel the taste too strongly, which would make me want to throw up... This and skimmed milk. I never enjoyed eating and would usually skip breakfast and any meals during the schoolday, have my sandwiches when I came home, in place of dinner and once more before sleep.

My mom probably tried everything, threats, encouragement, bribes, but my problem was I'd simply throw up if any "yuck" touched to my tongue, either by a brave attempt to try a new food, or if an unwanted food accidentally touched to a knife and got mixed into my food.

I don't know how my body survived on this diet, I took some vitamin supplements every day and in my teens I added some junk (like potato chips) and balanced the energy needs that way.

Eventually, one year in university, when I finally had the chance to eat my lunches all alone at my own table, with noone to be disappoint by me or put pressure me, I carefully experimented with new tastes and textures, together with some self-help methods on eliminating unwanted reflexes... Very small meals at first, no meat.. Then, after a while, I could eat almost anything... I think I was 22.

A couple of years later, I went to a far-away land and married, exposing myself to whole new world of fresh vegetables, spices...

Now I'm 30, I actually like eating, my weight is above normal, and my life's biggest limitation has been resolved.

Only to see it start all over again.. My 5-year old son is cutting down his meals to a more and more narrow selection... He is still much more varied than I was, but soon we'll have to start to supplements or find some way to trick him into eating more vegetables... Not sure what to do...

As some of these posts make clear, its all a lot more complicated when you are talking about an AS child. Give them what they need, and when they are ready, they'll work their way out of it. I don't think there is anything else a parent can do. It has to be really frustrating, however, when EVERYONE thinks they know some "better" idea

I like your approach, CarolinaGirl. It includes a nudge so that she can move on when she is ready, but not an absolute, so that she has to get too frustrated by it all.

Right there with you, CG. It can be very frustrating and tiring. Always needing to cook two meals, limited restaurant selections, constant complaints about things not being done "just right"... I really hope Billy (10 year old) grows out of it.

I find my self more presenting the same food in a diffrent package then cooking two meals most of the time. Tonight I made bake potoes, steaks, spinach salad and shrimp for dinner. Jake ate the potatoes and the steak but they had to be severed with ranch dressing and hotsauce, would touch the salad or the shrimp so I just cut him up some fruit and put it on a plate on the side. Other nights I just have to put what ever it is on a bun and bingo it's edible some times I make it a rap with him the bread makes a buffer between the food and his mouth making it easier to swallow. If your kid is a bugger fan like my jake making everything look like it came from a drive-thru might help get more in to a picky kid

I think your approach is great! Particularly because it is very similar to ours.

Our sons (one especially) went for years eating only a few foods (for him almond butter and jam sandwiches, apples, cheerios and grape juice were the staples). We had him do the just one bite of whatever our family meal was, and then he would have a large "snack" of what he liked. Over the years his "one bite" started to slowly get bigger. Now he eats and likes most vegetables (raw), a variety of fruits, plain meats and potatoes (if the mood strikes him). He will even tolerate small portions of rice, pasta, soup etc. He still gags sometimes (he calls it getting "grossed out"), but he has become much less sensitive over the last 2 years (he is almost 10). We even prepare special meals together each week, and I have been shocked at the recipes that he has been interested in preparing and tasting.

We have been really lucky at this gradual desensitization. Our OT said that kids can have a kind of sensory shift every few years (at the same time auditory stuff has actually gotten harder for him to deal with?!). During times of stress he can start to have a harder time again, gagging more, more sensitive to smells and textures and able to try less again.

Anyway, I really dislike the "make them eat it" school of thought, and it really doesn't seem to work with AS kids at all. I think your approach is a very reasonable one.