Last month a story came out of England about a teenager who went blind from eating only junk food. I found this very interesting and bookmarked the article so I could blog about it when I had the time. Well oopsie, September passed by in a blur and the email I had saved with the link to the article got buried in my inbox until yesterday when in a frantic attempt to organize my life by starting with my work emails I encountered the article I had saved. After doing a little research on the story I was glad I waited to share the information because the initial story that most of the media outlets shared left out certain details that misrepresented the real lesson to be learned from this young man’s tragic vision loss.
The basic story is that a teenager in the UK whose diet consisted of Pringles, white bread, french fries and occasionally some ham lost his eyesight to a condition called nutritional optic neuropathy which like it sounds, develops due to the lack of the proper nutrients that the eyes need in order to function. Many of the articles used this story as a cautionary tale, admonishing junk food eaters and parents of picky eaters that this is what could happen if you don’t eat a healthy diet. Turns out the young man who went blind was not a “picky eater” but rather , he had an eating disorder called ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) which led to various nutritional illnesses. The media however jumped on the bandwagon of the evils of junk food and fad diets instead of using the story as an opportunity to bring awareness to the importance of detecting mental health disorders in children and teenagers. Does poor nutrition due to a diet limited to french fries lead to blindness? Absolutely that can happen, but this story was way more complex than simply blaming Pringles and fries.
Park Eye Center 