It’s 7:15 am, and I have just been to Tesco’s to buy emergency supplies of ham, spicy crisps and white bread. This is not what Annabel Karmel told me feeding my children would look like. This is ARFID.

In case you haven’t heard of it. ARFID is an eating disorder that is often concurrent with autism, anxiety, and other sensory processing neurodivergence. It stands for Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and both my children have had it since birth.

I could see it in my son and I have been managing his for years. But when my daughter was diagnosed recently by a psychiatrist, at the age of 14, I admit I was shocked and mortified. Because she ate what would be considered ‘normal’ foods, or normal foods for a teenager: chicken nuggets, chips, fruit. It’s only looking back that I realise the sensory elements involved in her food, right from when she wouldn’t breastfeed and I thought I was a monster for putting her on formula. Formula which always tastes the same.

And now she is also battling depression, those sensory constraints have become much more obvious. At present, there are very few foods that she feels she can eat and if she can’t get the specific food that she knows she can manage, she just won’t eat. She is anaemic and keeps fainting.

One thing ARFID is not is fussy eating. So the doctor that told me her children ate ‘because she told them to’, when I went in tears of desperation with my malnourished son, was very lucky. I hope she never knows what it feels like to see her children sob in remorse because I have prepared something that they can no longer eat even though they are starving. 

Enter safe foods. 

The foods that always taste the same and have smell, sight, texture that is (nearly) always acceptable. There are very few safe foods and they’re usually expensive because they come in a packet. The ‘healthier’ the safe food (Bear Yoyos I’m looking at you) the pricier they are. My loyalty to Waitrose is not just the free coffee but the fact they stock the right flavour of Bear Yoyos and they’re often discounted.

And I’m grateful for teachers who make toast, for restaurants that happily serve chips and peas, and for whoever dictated that breakfast cereal and bread be fortified with iron. Have you ever tried to give iron to a child with sensory needs? Our fridge has three flavours of liquid iron, none that can be disguised in juice, and I’ve tried every chewy vitamin I can buy, because they can’t swallow tablets.

I will go upstairs later and find a half eaten ham sandwich, and be thankful. I’ll message the SEND hub at school and ask them to make toast. And then I’ll go to work.