Suffering from an eating disorder, an ordeal, regardless of age. On the Web, a father revealed his son’s illness which, little by little, had an impact on the family balance…
If anorexia nervosa is probably the eating disorder best known to the general public, because of the significant media treatment it has been the subject of for many years, it is not the only one… Thus, in 2013, the restriction disorder or avoidance of food ingestion (ARFID, Avoidant and Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) made it to the TCA list. This disease affects children and adolescents who, if affected, will eat very little or avoid certain types of food for various reasons: aversion to texturetemperature, color or theodour of certain foods, disgust when consuming…
On the platform Reddit, a father shared the experience of his son aged 9 years suffering from ARFID. He said that his child only ate processed meals, his sensitivity to food being so strong that he would still be traumatized by the ingestion of a grape that was too acidic seven years ago. A peculiarity such that the boy has, little by little, been excluded from family mealshis wife’s sister finding “unfair that his nephew eats junk food in front of his cousins, who eat more balanced meals”. Faced with this testimony, the Reddit community appeared to be divided. “If this father’s son was diabetic and sometimes had to keep sugary snacks on him that he couldn’t share with others and sometimes took them out when his sugar was low, the response of would her sister-in-law be the same?” asked a user. Conversely, some said that this dad had no right to dictate what happened in someone else’s house. “Your sister-in-law has the right not to want to fight over food with her children because yours has a health problem.”, argued another user.
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ARFID: how can I help my child cope?
If your child suffers from a food restriction or avoidance disorder and his weight does not put him in danger, he can follow a cognitive behavioral therapy. The objective of this approach? Gradually reintroduce foods that the child had cut out, in particular thanks to food chain technique consisting of trying new foods similar to those that are already loved by playing on the variation of the latter, by testing different recipes for example or by opting for different forms: grated, sliced, cubed, boiled, grilled. Note that unlike people with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, those affected by ARFID do not have no body image issues or a fear of gaining weight.