This 11-year-old has only ever eaten custard, biscuits and baby food

Fussy eaters would break your heart, but what if a mental block stopped your child from eating properly?

One mum in the UK has spoken out about her 11-year-old son's extreme eating habits. Josh Grove from Dorset has only ever eaten custard, digestive biscuits and baby food. He began to cause concern as a baby. After being unwell over his first Christmas just as he was starting to eat solid foods, the family doctor recommended he go back on the bottle. After that, he struggled to take to solid foods. The family believed the situation would rectify itself once he started preschool and was eating around other children, but nothing changed. His mum Lorraine explained that despite a number of tests, doctors can't find any reason for Josh's selective eating.

"To begin with, we thought he was just a fussy eater," she told Metro. "It’s something within his mind that makes him think he can’t eat something. He just can’t face it."

Josh has been seen by a dietician and by mental health professionals but has not been able to overcome his issue with food. He takes vitamin supplements to make sure he gets a balance of nutrients but is embarrassed of his diet, his mum said. "He’ll touch food, but he simply can’t put it in his mouth and doesn’t know why," said Lorraine. "He really wants to overcome his problem and sometimes he gets really upset about it, which is hard for me, as his mum, to see." His family has now lined up sessions with a hypnotherapist in an effort to get Josh eating. The boy has set himself a goal of eating a Christmas dinner with his parents and three older siblings this year. "Every year he asks what I would like for Christmas and he knows my answer," his mum said. "If the hypnotherapy works, having us all together, eating the same thing on December 25 will be really special."