Another day, another attention whore in another completely fictitious Sun "article".

My daughter and I are both eating Ramen Noodles for lunch right now so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Seriously though, if this story is true it's nothing more than a severe parenting fail.  The problem starts when parents project their own tastes onto their children at a very young age by doing such things as wrinkling up their noses and saying, "eeeew are you sure you want to try that spinach?  You probably won't like it."  Serve up a side of veggies like it's something new and special and let the kids decide for themselves whether or not they like it.  Oh, and don't do something stupid like "hide" the vegetables in other foods and lie to the kids, i.e. calling mashed cauliflower mashed potatoes.  And start early with the new food discovery -- as soon as the kids are sitting at the table with you.

The result of this line of thinking?  My kids eat all sorts of vegetables like they're going out of style.  Why?  Because even though their friends may have told them that Brussels Sprouts are nasty, they've learned that everyone like different things.  They understand that they won't know if they like something without first trying it.  And they know that if they don't like it, mom and dad aren't going to force feed it to them but instead try another vegetable or serve up one that they do like.

Come on already parents.  Giving your children nutritious food is not the hard part of the gig.

This is just evolution in action. Let the little biatch die of malnourishment.

I was talking to a doctor the other day and out of nowhere she bragged that her 16 year old daughter has never eaten a vegetable.  And my uncle's girlfriend is proud of the fact that she's never eaten anything green; she'll tell you every chance she gets. These people are out there.  We don't have to pay attention to them.

How would this kid not have scurvy?

I'll bet she smells weird.

ImpatientlyUnsympathetic: And the family doctor continually said he was OK. No one could say anything about it without getting shut down because the doctor said he was OK

This could be a case of selective hearing.  My mother was put on a low cholesterol diet which, in her head, she followed religiously and told the doctor that as well.  So the doctor put her on pills.  What she didn't tell him was that she was going through a stick of butter a day.  Her oatmeal was floating in butter.  Since the doctor thought she followed the diet as she said he concluded that her diet wasn't the contributing factor.  She translated this as that fast food was not causing her rise in cholesterol and therefore she could eat all the fast food she wanted.

Same thing with her diabetes.  She would eat "sugar free" deserts and tell the doctor how she was using fake sugar all the time while leaving out the fact that she was going through a 3-liter of soda a day.  Same thing as the cholesterol, she twisted it around to where her diet was not a contributing factor and concluded that she can eat/drink all of the sugar filled treats she wanted.

She's not doing it intentionally.  She has pathologically lied to herself and fully believes that none of her health problems are her fault.

The 5ft 3in teen weighs just seven stone and has the health equivalent to that of an 80-year-old.

More information please?


"I always fancy noodles and could easily eat two packets at once.

I think we all can...  That's not even remotely unique.

Splish: ImpatientlyUnsympathetic: Medical professionals can be idiots too.

This is clearly true, but they're not usually idiots with regard to medical issues.

IDK, my mother in law has pulled some seriously bone headed moves when it comes to health with my husband and my nephew. Like the time she was without insurance and she decided to take my husband (when he was 13) home after he broke his leg in a soccer game. She didn't think his leg was actually broken, so she said, "if its broken now it will be broken tomorrow!" He had a tib-fib fracture. Once his adrenaline wore off, he was in excruciating pain and she had to take him to the ER. They cased him to the hip for 6 weeks and to the knee for another 4-6 weeks. The to-the-hip cast was so heavy, he ended up having to be home schooled because it was too difficult to get to school, get around school and get home without being exhausted and unable to keep up with school work.

Then, one time, she asked her mother in law what she put in a cake made for my nephew's birthday, even though she learned it contained nuts which my nephew's mother already believed were allergens for my nephew, she still served it to him and then lied when my sister in law asked about it. Then, when his face got puffy, she blamed her 90 year old mother in law for making a cake with nuts, even though I was there when she asked about nuts in the cake. YAY ER visit for your first birthday!

Medical. Professional. 30 years experience. Thinks she's smarter than everyone.

Splish: I was talking to a doctor the other day and out of nowhere she bragged that her 16 year old daughter has never eaten a vegetable.  And my uncle's girlfriend is proud of the fact that she's never eaten anything green; she'll tell you every chance she gets. These people are out there.  We don't have to pay attention to them.

They're train wrecks though, so hard to look away. My nephew won't touch vegetables. I'm truly horrified that someone that works in the health field (such as the doctor you know and also my MIL and SIL) are so willing to accept unbalanced diets. Then again, my nephew has had obvious speak issues since the age of two and he started getting therapy for it at 4.5 years old, because it wasn't convenient before. And the family doctor continually said he was OK. No one could say anything about it without getting shut down because the doctor said he was OK. Medical professionals can be idiots too.

I remember a story from Britain some years ago about a 9 year old kid whose mum let him eat nothing but jam sandwiches. "I like jam because it's sweet," he said, "and nothing else tastes good," or some such nonsense.

I'd be in the "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" "EAT IT OR WEAR IT!" school of thinking on this subject, and there'd be no damned jam in the house if my kid tried to pull that crap. WTF is wrong with some parents?

A child with "Selective Eating Disorder" is my worst nightmare. If my hypothetical children fussed about everything, I'd lose my mind. I already went through a year of my husband thinking he didn't like most foods, slowly broke him of that (his parents are terrible cooks, he never learned and his mom loves being a martyr about it) and if I had to start all over with a kid, I'd be done. Its hard enough to cook for my in laws on the 2-3 times a year that we get together at our place or when you have to pick a restaurant that fits 3 picky eaters (FIL, BIL and nephew).