Jun 30, 2016
When Juhi joined the staff at Kottage House, a residential care facility, she met WD. WD is a very special client with highly restrictive eating patterns and very specific taste preferences in food. Everyone, including his mother, knew he only liked to eat chicken nuggets, chicken strips, french fries and chips as his complete daily diet. So, during her first two weeks on the job, Juhi gave WD just those familiar foods to maintain his nutritional intake.
Then one day, on a spontaneous decision, Juhi decided to give WD perogies and meatballs for his lunch meal. To her complete surprise, he ate the unfamiliar foods without resistance!
This successful meal became a turning point for WD's eating habits. Juhi began to systematically introduce foods that were not on his regular restricted menu. She offered things like breakfast cereal, rice, and spaghetti in tomato sauce. As WD accepted and ate these new food varieties, Juhi would gradually give him smaller portions of the chicken, fries and chips he was accustomed to eating daily.
Juhi continued to add nutritional variety to WD's daily diet over several weeks. She eventually stopped giving him his previous favorite foods entirely.
Recently Juhi offered WD his former favorites of chicken nuggets and fries. He would not eat these previously preferred foods. Juhi couldn't believe this complete reversal in his food preferences! She also noticed WD has reduced his chip consumption from eating two bags of chips to eating one bag each week.
Juhi is glad to see WD eating a diverse range of other foods now. When she shared this positive dietary news with WD's mother, she was very happy about her son's improved eating habits as well.
