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.
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.
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FunTranscript
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.