A family traveling on a flight asked an outraged fellow passenger not to eat near their child. The passenger, flying from New York to Los Angeles was seated next to the family including a young child aged nine.
As a diabetes sufferer, the passenger has to eat at certain times, so two hours in, he started to snack. He was not prepared for the nearby family to intervene.
He wrote on Reddit: “I immediately began receiving dirty looks from the parents and the mother who said, ‘Can you not do that? Our son.'”
He obliged and put his snack away, politely responding to the request. He explained: “I figured I’d wait until the flight attendant came around so I could buy food from her and eat at an acceptable time just to show some respect for their wishes. The trolley finally arrived and I ordered a Coke and some snacks.”
The dad suddenly intervened telling the crew that the whole row didn’t want anything so the flight attendant duly left without serving anything to any of the other passengers.
The perplexed passenger continued in his efforts to get a snack. He said: “I go up to press the call light so I can get my food and my drink because I actually need it and the father says, ‘Our son has Prader-Willi. We’d prefer it if you didn’t eat because it causes tantrums when he doesn’t know he can’t eat and he’s always hungry’.”
One of the symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome is a constant craving for food, usually resulting in rapid weight gain.
The Reddit poster went on: “I’m close to a tantrum myself at this point and so I look him in the eye and say, ‘I do not care, fly private if you want to control your surroundings’.”
When she recounted the story to a friend, the Reddit user said the friend felt that he should have been more understanding of the son’s condition. Understandably, this story has caused much debate on Reddit.
In the thousands of comments, most were understanding as to why the passenger reacted the way he did and many could see both sides of the medical argument.
One wrote, “I’ve been in similar situations before, not on planes, but in restaurants. My oldest daughter is autistic too. I just want to say that you didn’t fail, even if things didn’t work out the way you planned. You adjusted, you persevered and you got through a tough situation. That sounds like you succeeded to me”
Another sympathetic reader commented: “Don’t feel bad for not knowing. It’s rare, and you don’t usually hear about it unless you’re in a medical education setting, or you seek out the more…interesting human curiosity documentaries.”
Another wrote: “Why not seat the child on the other side of the parents so they are not next to the person eating?”
One user added: “OP tried waiting, but a diabetic person letting their blood sugar get out of whack is risking a medical emergency or even death.”
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