Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Non eating

We have food issues. I don't ever/have never fought poor eating. The issue is partly sensory, partly self-consciousness, and partly altruistic. At 9mths, he suddenly spat out his minced meal and that was the end to smooth-textured meals. Till today, he won't touch mash potatoes. Then at 4yo, he turned vegetarian after we walked through a fish market. He gradually resumed eating meat several months later, but not before falling ill a lot because of his self-inflicted restricted diet.

The last one year, he has visions of growing up to be tall and thin. Well, he's currently short and thin. I've tried to tell him about the matter he requires to grow tall, but that always ruins his appetite. I HEARTILY encourage snacking at my house because of the small quantity consumed during meals, but even that is not happening. I just can't understand where he gets his energy from. I actually cook different types of meals, bake a lot, and we're all getting fat, except him. Eating, like sleeping, unfortunately, is a waste of time to him . So long as he doesn't develop major health problems that require immediate attention in terms of diet, I'll just keep trying and trying.

Nothing I wrote should be construed to discount the existence of things like food allergies. I am no expert in the field of eating disorders. I was focused on the original post, which sounds like a training problem to me. But food allergies and other physical or psychological problems could surely cause eating problems, and if you got from anything I wrote that eating problems cannot have a physical cause, I'm sorry. I certainly didn't mean to communicate that.

I guess it should also be obvious that someone can have some sort of sensory differences that could help to cause an eating disorder. (I would expect that to be quite rare, but perhaps among 2E children etc. it would be more prevalent than normal.) Even where something rare like that is present, I would not expect the environment to have zero impact. I guess that if a sensory disorder is severe, it can be quite hard to help the afflicted child eat more normally.

I also think it's obvious that someone can have a psychological or psychiatric problem that causes, partially or fully, an eating disorder.

Still, I think it should be obvious that learned behavior generally does have a great deal to do with eating habits. This may be true even where some other cause exists for an eating problem. A particular person having one fussy eater out of two, where the fussiness was caused by what sounds like a somewhat major medical issue in your case, doesn't disprove that to me. Like everything else, children are individuals and one will need to be perceptive and responsive to each one's needs.

Both of my children had/have SI/oral issues and were really late eaters. DS did not start solids until after his 1st birthday and took him until age 3 or so before he was on a normal diet. In his case- it wasn't just a case of picky eating issues- he would choke/gag on any thing that had more texture than a thick liquid. Even now at the age of 8 he still has oral issues and speech issues which he receives therapy for.

DD is just now 2 (and no clue whether she will also be "gifted" like DS) but she had the same issues only more so! She did not start on solids until 18 months and was even failure to thrive starting around 12 months. She had swallow studies done, therapy and they were even considering feeding tube for awhile! She is also still not talking -only 3-4 words, but DS was also the same with language development so I am not too concerned at this point.

Of course my children's "issues" are not the norm- but the let them eat when they eat would definitely not have worked in our case ;-). DS is a good eater now- some picky eating behaviors- but normal age appropriate ones.

When DS was 2 he connected the dots that chicken(food)=chicken(animal). That was it, can't eat meat to this day. Beef lasted only about 10 days longer, because it was steak, but once he got me to admit that steak was from a cow, that was done as well. He is 9 and continues to be horribly difficult to feed, probably some sensory things going on. Maintains reasonable height and weight though. We did have him on an elimination diet for about 6 month for a sinus issue and casein and gluten were on the list, but then his diet was so restricted we did start flirting with eating disorder stuff. I now just provide some light monitoring, "I think we're a little low on protein today". He's okay with that. Carbs and cheese are still a big part of his maintenance, but he's good with raw fruits and veg. We just do the best we can.

Thank you for all your thoughts.