Blinded by fries: how malnutrition may have taken a teen’s sight
AUSTIN (KXAN) – A new report surface earlier this week that a teenager in England, who survived for years on a diet of French fries, Pringles, bread and processed ham, had gone blind.
The report was suspect and doctors are still investigating, but it does make one think about how this could possibly happen and if it could happen to you.
Could fries make me blind?
The short answer is no.
The English teenager didn’t go blind — if he actually did — because of eating fries. It wasn’t what he was eating but what he wasn’t that is the problem.
According to the USDA, a proper diet is all about balance and variety. The teenager in this case lacked both of those things. In the initial report, the teenager was neither under or overweight, meaning he consumed enough calories each day to survive, but not the nutritional variety need to thrive.
You can consume 2000 calories a day by just eating bread, but you shouldn’t. In fact, the nation’s nutritional guidelines, called MyPlate, focus on balance and variety.
According to the guidelines, half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables, with a quarter meat and a quarter grain.
But how did he go blind?
The patient’s diet likely placed him at risk for nutritional optic neuropathy, a dysfunction rarely seen in first world countries. In fact, its usually only found in areas stricken by poverty, war and drought.
Essentially, the body needs vitamin B12 to care for the nervous system. Without it, the nerves can shrivel.
In this case, the optic nerve was damaged because the patient didn’t consume enough B12 — leading to the alleged blindness.
While B12 is a pretty common vitamin and can be found in beef, chicken and eggs, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add variety in your diet. Each year, 20 million babies are born underweight and nearly half of all children under five suffer from malnutrition.
This is a global problem, and if this story does nothing else, hopefully it will remind you to eat better.