Autism>Eating Behaviours & Autism>Eating and Not Eating

Eating and Not-Eating

Eating

Stages of Development

Newborn baby - 3 months:
- in need of immediate satisfaction, increasingly able to tolerate frustration/ having to wait
‘Loving messages must accompany a feeding in order to meet a baby’s needs’ (Brazelton)
- cannot swallow actively, can only suck food down

after 8 months:
- wants to use new discovery/ ability of pincer grip = feed himself, finger-feed: ‘I do it!’
- communication: ‘I want to become independent and feed myself!’

from 1 year and during second year:
- child needs to be allowed to choose and refuse = YOU/ adult cannot be in control
+ teasing, refusing and saying ‘no’ to test/find out the limits:
The food isn’t the most important thing, - it’s the game that matters.

3 - 4 years:
child is becoming interested in and able to learn some manners

4 - 5 years:
if food hasn’t become an exciting battle-ground, child will begin to try new food

Eating is a social and communicative activity

Just food is not enough

Feeding the mind not just the mouth

What is Involved in Eating?

  • The food: taste, texture, temperature, consistency, amount...
  • The eating situation: where, when, who with, what, how, why?
  • The child’s mouth: tongue, lips, teeth, saliva, swallowing
  • The child’s feelings, (dis)likes, (early) memories, anxieties, fantasies
  • The mother’s relationship to food, memories, likes/ dislikes, anxieties, fantasies
  • The relationship between mother and child, their communication with each other

Food

Minimal Diet

To cover a child’s nutritional needs during early childhood (Brazelton 1992)

1) 1 pint of milk, yoghurt, dairy ice cream or 4 ounces of cheese

2) 1 egg or 2 ounces of meat (or an iron supplement)

3) 1 ounce of orange juice or 1 piece of fresh fruit

4) multi-vitamin tablet, if child does not eat any vegetables

Some Meanings of Not Eating

Different kinds of not eating:

  • refusing all/ certain foods
  • refusing to eat
  • refusing to be fed
  • fussy over food
  • refusing to sit down to eat
  • refusing to eat what is offered

‘Not-eating’ is a communication

The child may be saying:

‘I’m not hungry’
‘I don’t want to have to eat. Stop forcing/ pushing me!’
‘I want to eat because I want to, not because you want me to.’
‘I don’t like the taste/ texture/ ... of this.’
‘Eating is boring, - I’d rather go and play. I only need a little to stop me being hungry.’
‘You always give me too much. It frightens me to have so much food on my plate.’
‘You can’t make me!’
‘Let’s play the food-game again: you offer something, and I turn it down - then you again...!’
‘Don’t treat me like a baby/ little thing: I will show you that I am strong, and I will win!’’
‘I feel you are pushing me and I don’t like it.’
‘I want to do it/ eat it myself.’
‘I want to decide myself what I am going to eat.’
‘Eating with you is no fun.’
‘I am not having a nice time with you when there is food around.’
‘I don’t trust you: why do you want to push this food into me.
‘You pushing me to eat this so badly, makes me feel bad and then I feel the food is bad.’

Questions to ask:

  • Does the child have an eating problem? = to do with child wanting to be independent
  • Does the adult have feeding problems? = adult wanting child to stay dependent

It there is a struggle between dependence (being fed) and independence (feeding oneself): in the best interests of the child’s development, independence must win.

Tell him that he can always refuse what you are offering, but he can’t pick and choose what he wants to have instead.

A child’s not-eating is probably an issue about wanting to be in control, independent, about the relationship between mother and child, or mother’s anxiety over child’s physical survival, i.e. that the child will die.

Pushing a child to eat is the surest way to create an eating problem