Boy, 7, has never eaten a meal

In almost every sense he is a normal seven-year-old boy. He plays football, swims and goes to school every day, but there is one major difference separating Wester Hailes youngster Tyler Mill from his friends – food has never passed his lips.

Ever since his birth the youngster – who is known to friends and family as TJ – has refused food, and relies on a tube to feed him every night. His mother, Arlene Mill, 41, has told she has spent years attempting to find a solution. She is hoping that by highlighting his case, she may finally find the key to persuading her son to eat.

The full-time mother said that after a series of tests, medics confirmed the problem was entirely psychological. "There isn't really anything we haven't tried," said Ms Mill, a single mother who lives with Tyler and his older sister Robin, 12, in Hailesland Gardens. We've been to so many doctors and psychologists, tried forcing him to eat, breaking things up – I always thought he would just snap out of it and eat, but he never has." She added: "I just hope for the day he'll decide to eat and get on with it, but it hasn't happened yet. There's no problem with the swallowing mechanism, it's all in his head."



For years Tyler had a tube going into his nose to feed him, but Ms Mill along with medical experts opted for a night-feed machine, which means he does not have to eat throughout the day with the machine supplying him with high-fibre, high calorie milk during the night.

They have even tried to reduce the amount of food the boy gets in the hope that the hunger will trigger an appetite to eat, but this never works and Tyler – who is already small for his age – loses even more weight. She added: "We've now been told the best thing to do is to sit food in front of him and if he fancies it he can have an attempt. Pressuring him has never worked and has an adverse affect, he just runs away from the table. He does try though, but when he gets things into his mouth he just vomits. We used to try and make a big thing of it when he tried things. He seems to go for food with rich smells, like he often takes the inside of garlic bread into his mouth. He also once took a tiny corner of a Milky Bar."

Ensuring the health of her youngest child dominates her life, and can often keep her up throughout the night, particularly if something goes wrong with the night feeding machine, provided for her along with supplies of special milk and other equipment by NHS Lothian.

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