A 35-year-old man diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) claims that the mere thought of eating fruits, vegetables, eggs, or meat is enough to make him sick.
Calling Thomas Sheridan a picky eater would be an understatement. The 35-year-old UK man relies on a very strict daily diet that usually consists of two loaves of white bread, three bowls of Shreddies cereal, and lots of Haribo sweets, and he has never tasted fruits and vegetables. Because of his bland diet, he needs to take protein and vitamin supplements, but only those with a taste profile that he can stomach. The unemployed man claims to have made attempts to diversify his diet, but they have all ended in failure. A couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), an eating disorder that prevents sufferers from eating certain foods, and despite several attempted treatments, his daily diet remains incredibly restricted.
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“There was one time when we started drinking and everyone used to talk about bacon sandwiches when they were roughed up,” Sheridan told SWNS. “I attempted to make an egg and sausage butty one day, and as soon as the egg touched my mouth, I vomited about 10 feet across the room.”
Thomas’ parents recall that he started rejecting certain foods when he was 18 months old. He just “shut his mouth” one day, and all efforts to make him try fruits and vegetables failed. Doctors advised starving him until he ate what was offered to him, and his father tried offering him rewards, but nothing worked. At school, he was allowed to go home at lunchtime to eat toast because he couldn’t stomach school lunches. As an adult, his aversion to certain foods has prevented him from leading a normal life and made it harder for him to work.
“The last time I worked over a 10-day period, I lost 21 pounds,” Thomas said.
Desperate to incorporate new foods into his daily diet, the 35-year-old man is now trying to raise $8,000 for hypnotherapy, but there are no guarantees that it will help cure his ARFID.
