The World Of a Picky Eater

Health

I WILL NOT EAT MY GREENS The world of a PICKY EATER

There is nothing worse than going to a restaurant and finding you can’t eat any of the foods from the menu. You start to panic and sweat, should you stay and just order a bottle of wine for the evening (hoping no one will notice) or should you make the fastest exit out of there hoping no one would notice while vowing to never return.

It’s not that you can’t eat any of the food, it’s just there isn’t any of the food you particularly like, there are no fish and chips or no prickled onion crisps, in fact there is nothing on the menu that takes your fancy.

BY Anna Nuttall

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THE FUSSY EATING TRIGGER Imagine this scenario, you have met the man of your dreams and have set up an ideal dream date, you have found the perfect seducing dress and have fixed yourself to look absolutely perfect. Your dream date has arrived to pick you up; it is a dream too good to be true and then reality hits home with a thundering bang when he mentions he’s taking you to that posh seafood restaurant in town. Oh, uh what do you do? Do you smile and just go with the flow? Or do you buckle up and be brave and maybe suggest another restaurant? Tiny beads of sweat start to form on your forehead, you feel like you are in a nightmare, this isn’t how your dream date was supposed to go. Maybe if you drink wine all evening he might not notice or you could just sit back and enjoy this date and it could all go really smoothly? It isn’t just the problem of eating the seafood, it is the smell as well, and it’s enough to make you nauseated.

There is another small factor on why you can’t eat seafood, you are classed as a picky eater (or having a selected eating disorder to be more accurate). When it comes to food, it had been described that you have the mentality of a 4 year old even if you are a grown woman in your late 20s. What was once thought of as a fussy habit only found in children is now being closely examined and is being found more and more in adults.

A fully grown woman who could have a successful career and a loving family could easily dissolve into a bumbling mess at the sight of some green vegetables on the plate or even the smell of seafood wafting by you.

According to the picky eaters, it has more to do with nature than nurture, a higher anxiety toward food than what is considered normal.

Lisa Martin’s husband is classed as a picky eater where as a child he would only ever eat bacon, fries and salt where Amy on the other hand won’t eat any meat on her plate and only enjoys eating Heinz Spaghetti hoops.

Amy explains her eating habit by saying, “It’s definitely an anxiety problem that I feel I have no control over. I was not a sheltered child and forcing me to try things only made my problem worse.

People shouldn’t be quick to judge someone like me.

It’s hurtful and it only makes it worse because people don’t want to try and understand what is going on.

People just want to pass people like me off as being lazy or stubborn. It’s not like I want to be like this. I hate it. It’s embarrassing. But I don’t know how to overcome it.”

There are numerous accounts of people who all are sharing the same problem, often too embarrassed to talk about it in person but feel more comfortable online.

Take for instance Robin, an 18 year residing on the outskirts of Newcastle detailing his experience in an internet forum, “Most of what I eat consists of chicken (usually must be processed), cheeseburgers, hot dogs, scrambled eggs, bacon, bread, ice cream, milkshakes, dill pickles, yogurt, cheese, cereal, cheese pizza, popcorn, grilled cheese, French fries, onion rings, and chips. I cannot emphasize how much I love chips.”

Health Explaining himself further he continued by saying “It’s such a nightmare. As it comes up and people begin talking about the food they will gorge themselves with and getting excited for it, the first thing I think, is, “how am I going to avoid dinner with everyone? Will they possibly have something I like?” It’s so humiliating.

It’s such a bummer, the people that do figure out, they just tell you to just try it. Just try the food, you might like it. Or others will tell you that if you go hungry long enough, you’ll eat it. It’s far from the truth for me.”

It has always been considered a childish behaviour only found in children, a mannerism that a child would grow out of. Fussy mannerisms like when the child became picky with their food and won’t eat the vegetables on the plate and would prefer to eat a jam sandwich. Food experts have always considered this fussy food behaviour to be a phase that a child would eventually grow out of, and it is only recently food experts are classing this fussy food behaviour as selected eating disorder and are now examining this more closely.

Selected eating disorder (SED) Sufferers have an inability to eat certain type of foods, based on phobias or addicted to the aroma and texture of the food.

Lisa Martin’s husband is classed as a picky eater where as a child he would only ever eat bacon, fries and salt where Amy on the other hand won’t eat any meat on her plate and only enjoys eating Heinz Spaghetti hoops.

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Speaking to The Telegraph newspaper, Dr Nihara Krause, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and lecturer in eating disorders, says: “Selective Eating Disorder can be equally as restrictive as having a full blown eating disorder such as bulimia or anorexia. Psychological symptoms include worry, depression and quite significant social impairment, since sufferers can’t go out and eat. SED aligns itself more with the obsessive end of eating disorders, showing similarities with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. There tends to be a huge fear of eating things rather than fear of weight gain itself.”

This is why the Duke University in North Carolina USA, has conducted the first ever study of this eating disorder and is asking people who do suffer from this disorder to come forward and to fill out a survey online detailing their own experience.. Speaking to the BBC, the director of the eating disorder research at the Duke University Dr Nancy Zucker explains, “This is an area that is vastly under-explored (…) we have no idea how prevalent it is and how it affects people’s lives.”

Although the study has been set up online and is in the USA, the UK has yet to grasp this concept of picky eating and no study has of yet followed suit.

Examining people who are picky eaters or have Selected Eating Disorder (SED), it is important to discuss the health impact on the individual. Our body is a natural organism which relies on natural unprocessed food, but the sufferers of SED often binge quite happily on unnatural processed food such as crisps, milk chocolate and fried potato. One commenter on a specialist online forum for picky eaters commented on the unheathy habit of her boyfriend, “He literally only eats Frosties (no milk although he does drink milk it’s his favourite), Twix & other plain choc & sweets, choc sponge cupcakes, certain biscuits & cookies, more recently, with encouragement from me, he has started eating bread & butter & will drink apple & blackcurrant smoothies, only Tesco’s own though but it’s a start. He won’t stray from this diet.”

She continued to comment more on the impacts it has on her boyfriend and on her children, “He is so worried his children will be the same & actually his oldest son, who doesn’t live with us, is showing the signs although he does eat, arguably, a dinner it is just junk food. It’s so frustrating for us both as we cannot go to any social situations as my partner doesn’t eat anything you could order, there’s only so many times you can make excuses before you stop getting asked! He kept it a big huge burden of a secret, until he met me, he is ashamed and feels stupid, he can’t make food for our kids & has never used a knife & fork he is 28. I really want to help him and I think I have but we don’t know where to go from here???? Doctor does not take it seriously and are not interested as he looks healthy.”

Angela Steels is a specialist nutritionist and when exploring this eating scenario she commented on the health implication this will have. “…of course there will be many. I would be concerned about both nutrient deficiencies and toxic loads, with a diet so laden with additives, preservatives, trans-fats and often very high in sugar. Also, the repeated consumption of a very limited range of foods can sensitise the immune system to those foods and eventually lead to food intolerance (making life even more difficult).

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Speaking to The Telegraph newspaper, Dr Nihara Krause, a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and lecturer in eating disorders, says: “ Selective Eating Disorder can be equally as restrictive as having a full blown eating disorder such as bulimia or anorexia

Health The body has an amazing capacity to adapt and maintain homeostasis (balance) for a very long time, however without the essential nutrients which it can’t produce itself, it will eventually become imbalanced and more subject to illness.”

When discussing someone who is a picky eater with their food, it important to consider not only the implications for health but to consider the psychology behind it.

Felix Economakis is a psychologist who has appeared on a BBC3 programme “Freaky Eaters”. He explains the psychology of a scenario in which a woman is addicted to bacon and burgers, saying it stems from childhood anxiety and fear, a phobia of foods – some which are safe and some which can cause anxiety. The woman, who has a past incident of being attacked, has left been left vulnerable and eating safe foods like burgers and bacon and not able to get out of this comfort zone.

Angela Steels the nutritionist states, “In my opinion we are all individuals, and people will have different reasons why they develop this disorder, whether taste, aspect or psychological associations created by events in the past.

Often, food and eating habits are used as a way of expressing other feelings, like the need for attention, love, or a way of punishing oneself.” She has dealt with clients in the past who have had limited repertoire when it comes to foods and offers an explanation in dealing with picky eaters, “When I do come across clients who have a limited repertoire of foods, I encourage them to gradually introduce more foods. The taste buds can be trained to find different flavours pleasant. It takes around 7 days for the cells in our taste buds to be renewed, so if we taste a food repeatedly over a period of time, we can train ourselves to like it. This takes effort and a lot of support from family and friends.

I think it’s very important to expose children to lots of foods from a very early age and for them to see their parents enjoying these foods. Even if they do not like the foods initially, at least it opens their mind to liking them in future.”

Eating Disorder Group: Based in London: North London Eating Group 1st Floor Wensum House, 103 Prince of Wales Road, Norfolk, Norwich. NR3 1RE 01603 619090

While this Selective Eating Disorder is not widely known and studies are still being conducted, it is an interesting fact to note that there is still large numbers of people who have not come forward identifying themselves with this problem.

“As for the health implications, of course there will be many. I would be concerned about both nutrient deficiencies and toxic loads, with a diet so laden with additives, preservatives, trans-fats and often very high in sugar”. Angela Steels

This new eating disorder of selected eating could very well be a modern phenomenon only seen in western society, in a recent survey that was conducted by this magazine 50% admit to getting a take away at least 1-3 times a month, a massive 94% of people prefer to cook their own food. When asked if there was one food they could not live without, pasta and cheese kept popping up while mushrooms seemed to be the largest dislike among foods. One female surveyed shared her food memories, “I went dining in a dark restaurant and one of the dishes was figs with goats cheese – up until this point I would have never tried figs but as I had no idea what I was trying I tasted everything and loved the figs with goats cheese and have since tried to make the dish at home!

Angela Steels has this advice for anyone who is a picky eater, “Seek support and advice from a professional counsellor to identify what caused the behaviour in the first place, and to deal with this cause directly. If someone developed the disorder because they lacked affection from their parents, or as a way of getting their parents’ attention, then they should work with a professional to ‘unlearn’ this behaviour.”

BEAT -Beating Eating Disorder HELPLINE: 0845634 1414

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