Child with Crohn's on Whole30

[Kemma]

My husband and I (and one of our kids) are on day 5 of our Whole 30. 15 year old opted out, but our 12 year old has his heart set on doing it with us. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease last year and after seeing how sick his inflammation made him before he was diagnosed and started treatment, he REALLY wants to do this with us. The problem is I don't think he is getting enough food, and I'm trying to figure out compliant ways to get him more calories. He worked really hard to gain a lot of weight since his diagnosis so I don't want to derail his weight gain. He came home from school weepy because he says he’s hungry all the time. Problem is he's a picky eater. LOVES- meat, eggs, and smoked salmon but is not much of a veggie eater. He’ll eat potatoes, bok choy , avocado, and romaine lettuce, but won’t touch mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, sweet potatoes or carrot. Won’t eat nuts and olives. I got him to eat celery with some primal kitchen ranch dip. Packing his school lunches is a big challenge (sliced sausage, hard boiled egg and fruit this week). I keep telling him he doesn’t need to do this with Mom and Dad but he doesn’t want to give up. If we can find a way to make it work for him, I think it would be worth it to see if it helps with his inflammation. Any ideas? I've browsed the forums and it looks like maybe bending "the rules" for kids is sometimes ok. I saw some related posts suggesting paleo pancakes or perhaps dairy for kids. Thoughts? 

[SugarcubeOD]

24 minutes ago, Kemma said:

My husband and I (and one of our kids) are on day 5 of our Whole 30. 15 year old opted out, but our 12 year old has his heart set on doing it with us. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease last year and after seeing how sick his inflammation made him before he was diagnosed and started treatment, he REALLY wants to do this with us. The problem is I don't think he is getting enough food, and I'm trying to figure out compliant ways to get him more calories. He worked really hard to gain a lot of weight since his diagnosis so I don't want to derail his weight gain. He came home from school weepy because he says he’s hungry all the time. Problem is he's a picky eater. LOVES- meat, eggs, and smoked salmon but is not much of a veggie eater. He’ll eat potatoes, bok choy , avocado, and romaine lettuce, but won’t touch mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, sweet potatoes or carrot. Won’t eat nuts and olives. I got him to eat celery with some primal kitchen ranch dip. Packing his school lunches is a big challenge (sliced sausage, hard boiled egg and fruit this week). I keep telling him he doesn’t need to do this with Mom and Dad but he doesn’t want to give up. If we can find a way to make it work for him, I think it would be worth it to see if it helps with his inflammation. Any ideas? I've browsed the forums and it looks like maybe bending "the rules" for kids is sometimes ok. I saw some related posts suggesting paleo pancakes or perhaps dairy for kids. Thoughts? 

The SWYPO rules are suspended for kids but if the reason he's doing this is to reduce inflammation and possibly find flare up triggers, dairy isn't exactly ideal.  He sounds like he's reasonable, doing this because he wants to feel better so is there a way you can work with him to find veggie things he might like to eat? Can you go online with him and look through some Whole30 bloggers recipe sections and see if he can find something that looks good? I'm not going to type it out again because advice on how to become less picky about food (adults and kids) is already all over this forum so you can google 'whole30 picky eater' and get some advice there.

His lunch has no fat so altho you don't list out his meals, make sure they're template based with protein, fat and veggies and then the other thing that we recommend against for adults but exception for kids is snacking so he should eat when he's hungry (if you can have things like hard boiled eggs or leftover meatballs or guacamole and cucumber slices or something available so he can pick good options).

[GrandmaCW]

Our household is starting Whole30 on May 29th. Our 9 year old grandson was just diagnosed with Crohn’s. He has not started on any treatment (ie Remicade). His parents have opted to start treatment through a local Wellness Clinic. Their first recommendation was low dose naltrexone and Whole30 while further testing is done. The problem is that he is extremely thin and can not afford to loose anymore weight. Besides frequent small meals, how can we adjust the meal plans to promote weight gain?  He is not a picky eater. 

[ShannonM816]

@GrandmaCW this article has some tips for maintaining weight on whole30:  https://whole30.com/2013/12/keeping-weight-whole30/

I wouldn't necessarily go with frequent small meals, unless he needs small meals for other reasons, I'd try regular sized meals,  and then keep plenty of healthy foods on hand for him to have whenever he's hungry.

[Kemma]

1 hour ago, GrandmaCW said:

Our household is starting Whole30 on May 29th. Our 9 year old grandson was just diagnosed with Crohn’s. He has not started on any treatment (ie Remicade). His parents have opted to start treatment through a local Wellness Clinic. Their first recommendation was low dose naltrexone and Whole30 while further testing is done. The problem is that he is extremely thin and can not afford to loose anymore weight. Besides frequent small meals, how can we adjust the meal plans to promote weight gain?  He is not a picky eater. 

Hi GrandmaCW- I was the original poster on this thread. My 13 yr. old has Crohn's and did the whole30 with us in January. I totally get your weight gain concerns. If it gives you hope, one year after diagnosis and treatment, my guy has gained 30 lbs and grown 4 inches! But back to the whole30, our biggest struggle with him was that he was ALWAYS hungry while on the whole30 because he did not like a lot of the compliant foods. He is not a big veggie eater, so we all ate meals with meat and lots of veggies and got full, and he didn't fill up on the veggies. I actually wanted him to stop doing the whole30 a few weeks in because he was cranky and always complaining of being hungry, and it made my whole30 so much harder, but he didn't want to stop. I just had to work really hard to find foods he liked that would fill him up. Fortunately he loves eggs, smoked salmon (find a sugar fee variety) and all meats.  We found some filling veggies he likes (bok choy, cabbage). He absolutely needed an afternoon snack- couldn't do the 3 meals per day, because we wanted to be sure he got enough calories. Interestingly though, he was the only one in the family that did not have problems with any of the foods  when we reintroduced! Good luck!