Reply to Alarmingly underweight tween

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Alarmingly underweight tween"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm one of the parents who had a kid diagnosed with ARFID.   He basically wasn't interested in food unless he was absolutely starving -- at the end of his rope in terms of needing food -- and then it seemed he would eat just enough to take the edge off his hunger if that makes sense.  Once he was no longer absolutely starving, he'd stop eating.

It took about 2 years of patient effort to get him to continue eating until he was truly full, even to over eat on occasion.  I never outright required/forced him to eat anything, but I strongly encouraged it and tried to reduce distractions that were encouraging him to finish quickly.  For example, I often took him out to eat where he wouldn't have the distraction of wanting to go play on the computer.

I believe he had adapted to have a smaller stomach over the many years of eating just enough to keep the feeling of starvation away, but no more.  Gradually over time, it seemed to me his capacity to hold more food before feeling full expanded.

Having very regular meal and snack times helped him to feel more hunger cues.

Also, seeing and smelling a food he liked or taking a small taste of it about 15 minutes ahead of time for some reason seemed to stir up his appetite and arouse him for food.

Finally, some peppermint (gum or mint) about 30 minutes before a mealtime might have helped.   He also for a time was prescribed a liquid antihistamine I mentioned before that was mint flavored which might have helped.  Usually he would feel hunger an hour after he took that medication.

OP, do you feel that your child never felt hunger cues all throughout her life?  Or when she was say 4 years old or 6 years old, was she eating normally but then something changed?

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics