Forking It
June 17, 2009 by Jeff Stimpson
Filed under Health
Jill brings up a good point. I sure don’t envy parents of typically developing kids who have food issues — ingesting too much or too little — but I do think Alex should be left out of such debates (I do envy parents who have autistic kids who ingest too much food — I know that’s a nightmare too and I know I shouldn’t envy them but I do, because the crabgrass is always greener).
Photo courtesy of Shawnzam (flickr.com)
Alex’s first food came from a can that had been sealed by a chemical company, so right from his birth we weren’t picky about what he ate. Alex was, however. I remember sitting in front of his high chair and running through the Cheerios, Gerbers spiked with cream and maple syrup, strips of crisp bacon: we were at that time in a race to free him from his feeding tube, and any weight from anywhere was a blessing. Most of that weight came from the floor, where Alex would cast even the bacon (”What’s that? Is it new? No!” or “Get it off my tongue! It’s a serpent from Hell! Serpent from Hell! Get it off my tongue!”). After Ned, I can see this wasn’t normal.
Eventually we dumped the feeding tube — a near-run decision on the part of the doctor, who figured that the thing was probably hindering as much as it was helping at that time — and moved onto food. Jill was first to realize that moving onto real food for a little New York boy meant moving onto restaurants. “Guess who just ate bacon in a coffee shop?” she asked me on the phone one afternoon. She said his eyes got real big. And why shouldn’t they have?
Every feeding milestone with Alex has been a moment of moments. White rice. A brownie. V-8 juice. Yogurt. Hot dogs. A single strawberry. He turned 11 over the weekend, and he weighs about 55 pounds. I begin to wonder just how much bigger he’s ever going to get.
I guess I’d raise my eyebrows at a doughnut issued in gym class (where was this gym teacher when I was in 10th grade??). But what’s right for one person’s fork isn’t right for the forks of all, and that seems to be what food’s relation to Alex and his autism is all about.
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Autism, food, and eating, from Neurodiversity.
Tips on tackling selective eating associated with ASD.
The more I read this blog, the more I identify with your Alex; not just because we share a name.
A little about me: I was also three months premature (3.5, really; 14 weeks). I’ve been underweight and small-framed my whole life. I had some developmental issues, and currently deal with some not-too-uncommon mental disorders (ADHD predominantly inattentive, a little OCD, and SPD).
I, like Alex, have been a very picky eater. Maybe my experience will be helpful to you, I don’t know, but here goes…
When I was old enough to have food preferences, I just plain quit eating a lot of foods; I also started eating some weird stuff (plain butter, mustard, salt). I believe it was because of sensory integration problems.
Over the years, things didn’t improve. In high school, I suspected I had food allergies, but was told I was a hypochondriac by everyone, including the family MD (”you can’t be allergic to all of those things”). The doc’s reluctant referral to the allergist, and subsequent allergy scratch test, revealed that I have a list of food allergies a mile long. So if a food allergy test is possible, I would recommend it, if you haven’t already had one for Alex.
But beyond the allergies, I’m also sensitive to smells, textures, and tastes in some foods, but seem to crave the extreme stimulation of others. I love spicy, strongly-flavoured food and have since I was a toddler, but I can also detect even the tiniest shred of lettuce (vile weed!) in a taco or sub sandwich. Again I think this is sensory integration problems.
I downloaded the .pdf you linked here, and I have to say that I absolutely agree with the first point. Pressure from my family has definitely exacerbated my feeding problems.
Just being at the dinner table, often the site of food battles, and in the presence of parents and others can sometimes be enough to make one resistant.
I don’t know if Alex would be interested in a food item if you left it out for him to discover, but I think that’s an absolutely fabulous idea. Going to college was the best thing that happened to my diet because I could be completely alone in trying something new. Trying a new food in a no-pressure environment could help him to adjust to that food more easily. There are no worries about how people will react, no anxiety if you “fail” to eat it, and the food itself seemed, to me, less hostile.
And on the flipside, trying a food that one might’ve liked in a high-pressure environment can ruin it. Green beans are my nemesis. My arch-enemy. Just smell them, they’re revolting! But I worked up my nerve and tried one, sauteed, at my boyfriend’s house at dinner time. It was lemony, it was garlicy, and, thank goodness, it wasn’t squishy. I ate the whole bean in small pieces, and though it took a lot of milk, I was feeling good about it! Not bad for a green bean, maybe I’d have another.
Boyfriend’s dad starting joking and teasing — he bullied me into eating green beans, four total, until I wigged out, gagged as subtly as I could, excused myself to the bathroom (where I coughed up what remained of the bean) and proceeded to have anxiety for an hour. Haven’t eaten them since.
My diet these days is mostly meat, dairy products, and carbohydrates. Lots of milk. I supplement with vitamins, and so far have suffered no health complications as a result of my limited diet or my low weight.
There is a Yahoo! group — Picky Eating Adults — that has some members with diets limited to little more than potato chips and crisp bacon. The owner of the group is 70 years old, and going strong. Let Alex eat what he likes and what you agree upon, supplement when you can, and ignore the people who try to make a fuss.
This is a great blog, and your son seems like a dear. Keep up the good work — seriously, you rock.
P.S. Obviously I can’t look in my crystal ball and predict about Alex growing, but, for what it’s worth… I weighed ~58 lbs when I entered sixth grade; today I’m of average height, and though underweight, not frail.
P.P.S. Sorry for writing a novel.