Dealing With Unhealthy Eating Habits

My brother Terence is living with me. He has schizophrenia. Even though I am not the best cook in the world, I do my best to make sure that he has the option to eat healthy home cooked meals when I can.

However, it is incredibly hard to get him to eat, sometimes anything at all. He just says that he isn’t hungry or that he doesn’t feel like eating. At first I was worried that these habits would grow worse and damage his health.

Lately, he has been eating, but nothing good. When he does eat, it is usually sweets. He will feel ill after eating unhealthily. He will actually buy sweets and then hide it from me, because he knows that I don’t like him eating the way he does. When I ask him why he is hiding something as innocent as candy from me, he says I complain to much.

So, my question is, is there anything I can do? Does anyone else deal with or have dealt with this problem? What did you do?

Cake with a glass of milk always got a few nutrients into me. Carrot cake has carrots, nuts and the cream cheese in the icing has nutrients.

What does he like besides sweets? Ask him what he likes and then fix it! Fix his favorite foods. I’ve never had his problem. Enjoying good food is one thing that schizophrenia didn’t take away from me.

I smiled when I read this. My son will hide medications from me even though he knows that I will find them. I don’t get mad at him for not taking them but he still hides them.

It’s hard to find that balance of wanting someone to eat healthy yet being unable to accomplish it. I don’t know if it has something to do with a type of sugar high that he gets from the sweets or if it helps to balance something his body is craving. My son eats a lot of candies and snacks.

I do my best to have things like vitamin water, fruit snacks and nuts on hand. Nuts can be a good source of protein when eaten in moderation. I recently started making my own vitamin waters as the ones you buy in the store has a lot of sugar added. I try to get him to take a vitamin supplement everyday. He doesn’t want it but usually takes it to make me happy. I get the fruit flavored gummy kind. I try to make salads with cilantro/coriander added as it has high nutritional values. Bad eating habits can take time to break. Maybe carrots or celery with a dip that he likes. V8 juices. I drink V8 fusion as they taste like fruits instead of tomato juice. My son really likes cheese. Fruit cups are sweet. Granola bars with chocolate.