Teen only ate Heinz Peppa Pig pasta shapes for 12 years

SWNS

A schoolboy who only ate Heinz Peppa Pig pasta shapes for 12 years has finally had a proper meal – thanks to hypnosis.   Curtis Maxwell, 14, from Rugby, Warwickshire, UK would gag if he was forced to eat anything other than the tomato-sauce pasta.    The teen would trough up to five cans of the novelty-shaped pasta every day – costing mum Kylie more than £100-a-month in food bills.   In desperation Kylie contacted David Kilmurry, a specialist in obsessive eating conditions, who diagnosed Curtis with ARFID.   ARFID — avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder — can make sufferers oversensitive to the taste, texture, smell, look and even temperature of certain foods.   After a series of two-hour sessions, Curtis now has more than ten foods which he is willing to try.

Transcript

00:00Beautifully and comfortably relaxed, and the next time you find yourself in an eating situation,

00:10you're going to find you're able to get into the rest and digest state beautifully and comfortably.

00:23All of this started when Curtis was about seven months old. When he first started weaning,

00:34we noticed that he was quite selective with flavours, textures and things like that, so

00:43he would only eat very specific types of things. He did have a slightly wider range, but then

00:48he went through what the health visitors said was food regression. They said that that was

00:54pretty standard and normal, but the problem was that when he went through that food regression,

01:00he never came back out of it and his diet became extremely limited. We found it very,

01:06very difficult to introduce new flavours, new textures to him because he was completely

01:13resistant to it. Any time we brought it up to a health visitor or a doctor, we were constantly

01:19told that it was just something that he would grow out of and that we had to be patient.

01:25It was a case of, oh, well, he's just a fussy eater. If he's hungry enough, he'll just eat what

01:30you give him, but he wouldn't. Time and time again, we were just completely ignored when we

01:38tried to bring this up as an issue, but I just think it's because there isn't enough information

01:45out there for parents and there also isn't enough information being provided to medical

01:52professionals and people that work with children. I think that it's highly important that

02:01this gets acknowledged more, because especially if it can be combated at early age when children

02:09are going through food regression and it is getting recognised at an earlier age,

02:14that more can be done for these children and they won't get to the point where Curtis is now, where

02:22we're having to come to therapy. I think that there needs to be more support for children

02:30and for parents alike when it comes to this situation. Curtis's diet has been incredibly

02:36limited. More often than not, like for lunchtime and dinner, he will eat these.

02:42He has a small list of foods that he will eat, like he will eat red grapes,

02:50he will eat ambrosia custard and digestive biscuits. That's part of his safe food list,

02:56but since he started therapy he's been slowly branching out and introducing more fresh foods

03:05into his diet. We've actually found he quite likes peanuts, which is good. It's a nice protein

03:14source and it's a nice easy snack for him to enjoy, which is a positive step in the right

03:20direction. He's keeping a food journal of things that he is trying and he's really starting to

03:29branch out. He likes mango, he likes a bit of passion fruit, didn't you bud? Yeah. But yes,

03:35obviously it's slow and steady progress, but it's moving along nicely and that's all thanks

03:41to David Kilmurry and the cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy services that he provides.

03:46Curtis has superseded my expectations and has taken to the therapy extremely well. Having had

03:56the food phobia myself, I do understand it. I do connect quite well with fellow ARFID sufferers

04:02and Curtis has just jumped in feet first. He's been for pizza with me, he's been for Subways with me

04:08and we've only done three sessions. So he's doing very, very well and I have absolute faith

04:15in the fact that he's now fully recovered from the food phobia.

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