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Teen who only ate crisps and chips goes blind

By T.K. Randall
September 3, 2019 · Comment icon 26 comments

Fussy eating taken to extreme levels is dangerous. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 Ewan Munro
Experts have warned about the dangers of fussy eating after one teen's diet caused him to lose his eyesight.
Most of us will have gone through a period of fussy eating at one stage or another while growing up, but for one 17-year-old, a diet of only chips, crisps and bread has brought about dire consequences.

The teenager, whose name has been withheld for legal reasons, first started to feel unwell at the age of 14 and at the time was suspected of having vitamin B12 deficiency, but after failing to keep up with taking supplements and continuing his terrible diet, within three years he had started to go blind.

"His diet was essentially a portion of chips from the local fish and chip shop every day," said Dr Denize Atan. "He also used to snack on crisps - Pringles - and sometimes slices of white bread and occasional slices of ham, and not really any fruit and vegetables."

"He explained this as an aversion to certain textures of food that he really could not tolerate, and so chips and crisps were really the only types of food that he wanted and felt that he could eat."
Although the 17-year-old was not underweight, he was severely malnourished.

"He had lost minerals from his bone, which was really quite shocking for a boy of his age," said Dr Atan. "He had blind spots right in the middle of his vision."

He has since been referred to both a dietitian and a specialist mental health team.

Whether he will ever fully regain his sight however remains unclear.

Source: BBC News | Comments (26)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #17 Posted by Jon the frog 5 years ago
Natural selection... when the offspring die the lineages die.  Just let it happen, it's better for our species.
Comment icon #18 Posted by Brok 5 years ago
Such a tasteful post. People like you are why they're withholding his name. If you had bothered reading the linked article or the thread, the boy suffered from an eating disorder that makes one intolerant to certain types of food. He couldn't stand anything other than chips and crisps.
Comment icon #19 Posted by Aaron2016 5 years ago
Not any more.  I grew up with my parents taking very little notice as they were going through a divorce and my metabolism allowed me to eat high quantities of junk food without putting on much noticeable weight, but as the years rolled by my organs began to slowly shutdown one by one (shortness of breath, tasting blood, bowels not working properly, feeling a sharp pain in my heart, and waking up gasping for air out of the window.)  When I added cheese and white bread to my junk food diet my belly fat expanded out so much that I could not squeeze into any clothes.  I finally put my body o... [More]
Comment icon #20 Posted by Gwynbleidd 5 years ago
Awww good for you Aaron - yeah it's pretty amazing how food affects your entire body and what a change of diet does.  We eat low carb at our place which helped with what was originally thought to be epilepsy (when my 9 yr old was little), but didn't end up being that after all.  But whatever it was, the low carb worked a treat and we've eaten that way ever since. Good on you Aaron - really great job!    
Comment icon #21 Posted by DieChecker 5 years ago
The kid should have got mental health help when it started up. I blame the parents for waiting all those years.  Kids can be picky eaters, but if you feed into it, it becomes super unhealthy. This kid is maybe screwed up for life.
Comment icon #22 Posted by Eldorado 5 years ago
Or ask the Germans... “…the last major famine caused by P. infestans occurred in 1916 during World War I. It resulted in the deaths of 700,000 German civilians, who were unable to protect their potato crop because copper was needed to produce bullets, rather than fungicides. "Even today, more than 170 years after the Irish epidemic, frequent applications of fungicides are necessary to grow potatoes in moist climates, and losses occur even in dry areas, such as Israel and the western United States. Potatoes remain a fungicide-intensive crop, despite more than 150 years of study of P. infest... [More]
Comment icon #23 Posted by Jon the frog 5 years ago
In nature that type of animal behavior result in death... Genetic or cultural disorder will rarely pass on the next generation when it's a big problem.  It's natural selection. On a larger scale, some species are over specializing themselves in time, and most of the time it result in a evolution dead end.
Comment icon #24 Posted by Mattacaster 5 years ago
Pun intended?  
Comment icon #25 Posted by Tom1200 5 years ago
I have the perfect solution to this: if Germany starts more wars there would be more shell cases and bullets lying around, so more copper would leach into the soil and eventually their diet would improve. We in the rest of the world could help them by banning lead in our bullets and only firing eco-friendly ammunition. Totally legal disclaimer: I read Eldorado's post but didn't really bother trying to understand it.  Any World War that arises as a result of this post is entirely someone else's fault.
Comment icon #26 Posted by Still Waters 5 years ago
His mother is blaiming the NHS.  


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