My son's doc has always said high protein and high fat (all the good ones of course)...If you guys eat low fat foods don't serve them to him. Let him have protein bars, peanut butter, real butter, real sour cream, and whole milk....oh and add Parmesan cheese to anything he will let you. Just make everything is in moderation. Another thing that my sons doctor did was add a small dose of Remeron (Mirtazapine) at night...It helps with sleep, increased appetite, and weight gain. We also started him on Zinc...there are a lot of articles that talk about how medications that treat ADHD cause a deficiency in Zinc...Zinc is very good. It takes a lot of hard work and it is nothing that you notice over night, but we have started seeing 2lbs here and 3lbs there...He is still thin, but he is almost 11 and has finally reached almost 60lbs…yeahhhh!

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It has been proven again and again that weight-loss diets do not work...at least not for weight LOSS. When a human body is given a starvation diet for as little as one month, it learns how to process food more efficiently and store extra food. For the first few million years of our existence, that was a survival strategy to cope with periods of famine. When the dieter goes off the diet and goes back to eating normally, the body quickly puts back on all the lost weight and then adds about ten pounds more as a reserve against the next "famine." If you ask overweight people how many diets they have been on and multiply by 10, you'll find you have a pretty good estimate of how many pounds overweight they are.

Given the above, the only thing to do to get your son to GAIN weight is to put him on a 1200 calorie per day weight loss diet for a month, and then let him go back to eating whatever he normally eats. No extra fat or unhealthy foods required. His body will do what it evolved to do and in about three months he'll be ten pounds heavier than when he started. If that is not enough of a weight gain, do it again.

Safety warning: on the weight loss diet, do get the advice of a nutritionist or dietitian. If you can't afford one, then make sure he gets a multivitamin tablet every day and that all food groups are covered.

It's too bad that there isn't such a scientifically proven way to LOSE weight for those of us with the opposite problem!

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We recently switched medications for our 17 year old, from Ritalin, to Vyvanse, 70 mgs, at first, than down to 60 mgs. Changing the medication, and lowering the dosage helped with his sleep problems, which he's had since his diagnosis years ago, and slightly increased his appetite. Also, he doesn't feel quite so alienated around schoolmates, and is better able to participate in classroom discussions, and between classes with his friends. The fact that he feels less different than his peers, is a great confidence builder. We may consider lowering the dosage again, down to 50 mgs, based on the positive changes we have experienced, so far. As our kids get older, trying a new medication might help to alleviate some of the problems they have with taking a medication. Just thought I would share my experience with you. Good Luck.

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Thank you for sharing your experience and advice. Katnipurs, We recently switched our son from the Daytona patch to Vyvanse and although we had to up the dosage on the new med it really does not matter, his appetite has always been affected by every med we have tried. We even did a 5 mg dose for evening sport activities and he lost his appetite! We have a slight reprieve in the summer because we take him off his meds unless he is going to camp. and am hoping I can fill him up with spaghetti and potatoes and fattening, healthy additives such as the sour cream and butter. :-) He has the nerve being finnicky but I will try the parmesan cheese. Thanks :-)

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My son (age 6 1/2) is also skinny as a pole. You can see every muscle, tendon, and bone in his body. It looks like I am an abusive mother, or he has some sort of horrible disease. A lot of tips on this and other websites are for "picky" eaters. However, my son is NOT picky. He actually would eat quite a variety of healthy and fattening foods, but he just isn't hungry. The medicine absolutely destroys his appetite.

Last year, he was taking (I can't remember...it was a form of Ritalin, I think) but he had lost so much weight that I complained to the doctor. The doctor switched him to the Daytrana patch, saying that since it absorbed through the skin instead of the stomach, he would not experience as much of an appetite loss. This was absolutely false. I wonder if he was misinformed, or if he was just trying to appease me.

He can NOT totally stop taking meds over the summer, but we usually lower the dose a bit. That way, we can get his weight up a little before school starts back.

I always buy whole milk, real butter, and anything he wants to eat. He likes meat with ketchup, so I try to have that handy. I put extra cheese in the macaroni. (I tried putting soy powder once, but he detected the flavor and wouldn't have anything to do with it!) He loves oatmeal with butter, milk, and cinnamon. He will sometimes drink Carnation Instant Breakfast.

But he will ONLY eat if he is really hungry. Never at school. Half the time, he won't eat supper. It's just not enough to support his body. He's shrinking down to nothing. He doesn't have energy to run and play, sometimes. I'm getting so worried about his health.

Someone suggested Mirtazapine. I was once prescribed Mirtazapine, and let me tell you, it's nothing to fool around with! I thought I almost died. I couldn't wake up or move. I was aware, but I couldn't move or open my eyes, even though I was trying to wake up and scream. It was really frightening. I still have a few left in the bottle, and if I just can't sleep, I break the pill into 1/16th bit crumbs and it knocks me out for about 12 hours and leaves me woozy the next day. That is some heavy duty stuff!!!

My son is already taking (1) Daytrana (2) Stratera and (3) Clonidine to help him sleep at night. I'm worried about adding yet another medication into his system. But he is just so disturbingly thin. The doctor had us try some kind of antihistamine, which didn't work at ALL. I think it actually made him nauseated, so that was totally unhelpful. Is there another appetite stimulant that anybody has found to be helpful? (I've been joking to my mom about making him some "special" brownies...but seriously he needs something!)

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