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Sat Jan 1, 2022, 01:07 PM

ARFID: 'My son's not a picky eater; he's scared of food'

Crisps, dry crackers and plain pasta may not be the most exciting foods but they are often the staples relied upon by children with a little-known eating disorder.

Nine-year-old Otto from Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, has the condition ARFID, which stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, meaning he avoids many different foods.

Otto says he would like to try new things, but often feels scared.

"It sometimes feels like food is inedible," he says.

"I feel like I'm either going to gag or throw up. I'm not familiar with the taste and that just makes my body feel like 'oh my gosh, this isn't like something you've had before...what is it? what is it?'.

"Then my body tries to get rid of it, which makes me gag."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-59688396
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I had never heard of this, but thinking back, I remember a little boy in the daycare where I worked who may have had it.

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Reply ARFID: 'My son's not a picky eater; he's scared of food' (Original post)
Jilly_in_VA Jan 2022 OP
tblue37 Jan 2022 #1
luvs2sing Jan 2022 #2
Probatim Jan 2022 #4
Quakerfriend Jan 2022 #3

Response to Jilly_in_VA (Original post)

Sat Jan 1, 2022, 01:10 PM

1. I have a friend with it. She managed to eat healthy foods, but only a limited number of them.

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Response to Jilly_in_VA (Original post)

Sat Jan 1, 2022, 02:11 PM

2. Wow..there's a name for it.

I’ve had food issues like this all my life, but much worse when I was a child. I think I can pinpoint it to the day when I was a toddler and was eating wide buttered noodles. A noodle flattened out on my tongue about halfway down my throat, and I started choking. My dad had to reach his fingers in my throat and pull out the pieces of noodle. I was never the same about food after that, and I still can’t deal with anything but the thinnest noodles.

I’m sure I ate fewer than twenty foods when I was a kid and, even though I’ve grown out of it a lot, I still have what Hubster calls “texture issues”. No eggs, no milk, nothing with a runny or slimy texture. I love to cook, but my friends nicknamed me “The Picky Foodie”.

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Response to luvs2sing (Reply #2)

Sat Jan 1, 2022, 06:20 PM

4. Coconut milk is the only ingredient that causes me to have that reaction.

I remember the first time I had it in Asian cooking - one bite and I was done. I was sitting there thinking "I'm a grown man and can't take another bite of this or I'll hurl."

That was 20 years ago and I won't try it again.

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Response to Jilly_in_VA (Original post)

Sat Jan 1, 2022, 02:26 PM

3. Interesting. I knew a little boy

who only ate chicken nuggets & they had to be from McDonalds- this went on until age 7.

I believe that “Super Nanny” delt with a British child who suffered from this condition, as well.

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