Eye specialists warn restrictive diets can cause permanent vision loss in children because of malnutrition. Photo / 123rf
By Amy Williams of RNZ
A parent of a teenager who eats only plain foods including bread, crackers and pasta says it’s terrifying to learn such restrictive diets can cause permanent vision loss.
It follows two eye specialists warning there were children in New Zealand who had gone blind because of malnutrition.
Sarah and her husband have tried everything to get their son, whose eyesight was good, to eat a balanced diet.
“He is a very plain beige food eater and he’s been like that from a very young age.”
She said her son will eat only plain foods such as bread, crackers, chips, pasta and brown rice.
“It’s really hard. You can get angry, you can get sad, grumpy, you know we’ve tried every which way to get him to eat.”
When he was diagnosed with autism, and later avoidant restrictive intake disorder, it came with some relief but Sarah said the worry was still there about his health.
Her son had regular check-ups, saw a paediatrician and took a nutrient drink three times a day alongside oral vitamin supplements.
“He hasn’t had any health issues from the lack of food that he’s had at this stage but it is frustrating, it’s heartbreaking, it is all of the above when you’re trying to feed a child something they have no intention of eating.”
It was a surprise to Sarah to learn her son’s eye health could be affected by his restrictive diet.
“It’s terrifying and it is surprising also when we have gone through medical specialists and that’s never come up.”
Paediatric ophthalmologists Dr Julia Escardo-Paton and Dr Rasha Altaie had seen children who don’t eat fruit and vegetables suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which could lead to blindness.
This included one boy who ate hot chips and Pringles and another who only ate chicken nuggets and chips.
They were urging parents concerned about their children’s diet to visit their GP.
Meanwhile, two population studies looking into the eye health of children aged 7 and 12 are underway, a first for New Zealand that will provide local data for researchers currently relying on overseas studies.
University of Auckland associate professor and optometrist Joanna Black is leading the research.
“It’s really concerning that children are experiencing preventable vision loss for any reason,” she said.
“What we’re trying to address in these studies is working out how, from a primary care perspective, we can detect it earlier and make sure children get the follow-up that they need.”
Researchers were collecting data for the 12-year-olds and analysing the data collected on 7-year-olds, which tested the vision of 1200 children from 83 schools.
“There’s definitely been referrals made to ophthalmology services in hospitals where the cause of reduced vision hasn’t been explained by other things that have been found, such as refractive error.”
Refractive errors were common eye conditions that could make vision blurry, such as near and far-sightedness.
Black said the 12-year-olds would be asked some environmental questions, including about cost-of-living pressures on their families.
“Nutrition’s become quite an important topic in eye health because it has been linked to a number of different conditions.”
Blind Low Vision said it knows of nine people who were registered blind and whose vision loss was caused by poor diet.
Its chief executive Andrea Midgen said that’s a small handful of 16,000.
“Of course it’s concerning and currently with the cost of living and people struggling to put great nutrition on the table, it’s a very complex issue,” Midgen said.
“It’s something that Government and various ministries and charities like ourselves are trying to focus on.”
Children were eligible for free vision testing before they started school and again in Year 7, when they were at intermediate.
“We talk a lot about health of our hearts and slip, slop, slap for sun, but eye health is just so critical and needs more importance placed on it as children make their way through the school system.”
Sarah said when her son was diagnosed with avoidant restrictive intake disorder, it helped her to understand his eating habits.
“They can hold everything together when they’re out but once they get home that’s when things fall over a bit,” she said.
“At dinnertime for someone who has had to process the whole day before them... and you try to feed them food, he just can’t mentally eat it.”
Looking ahead, she hoped for a bright future for her son.
“Things already are tough for a child like that, they battle a little bit more with everything they do every day, so our hope really is that he’s healthy and happy and can function independently going forward as he gets older.”
Sarah said she would monitor his vision and continue to get his eyesight tested each year.
- RNZ