Lisa said she wants to make more parents aware of the condition
A Dundonald mum has made a plea to raise awareness of an eating disorder which commonly affects children with autism - and has left her son only eating popcorn and pasta as part of his solid food diet.
“It’s an incredibly restrictive diet, the guidelines say that it includes people who only eat 20 foods and under, but my son only has two,” Lisa told Belfast Live. “As a parent your instinct is to feed your child, that’s what we do as parents so when you have a child that refuses all foods “Cillian has autism, he also has a severe learning disability and he’s non verbal, so it’s an even bigger challenge when the child can’t explain to you why they can’t eat or won’t eat.“Cillian is not growing as he should grow, which is a red flag to healthcare services even though he presents as a relatively healthy looking child.
“We just don’t do any of that. It’s just a constant worry that keeps me up at night, what happens if he drops his two safe foods? Are we going to get to the point where he is going to be eating nothing? That is the reality for most of us.”“It’s not something that is diagnosed readily, our GP wasn’t even aware of it when we originally raised it," she says.
“I want to get the word out there, within the autism community it would be kind of well known but in the mainstream community it’s not.
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