How has being a picky eater affected you? November 14, 2006

I imagine there are quite a few people who’ve spent a good many years dealing with picky eating day in and day out. If you’re like me, there are some days when you almost forget about it and there are other days when you’re really wound up about the whole issue and fervently wish you had a solution. So given that it does have such a big influence on your daily life, what impact has it had?

In my case I used to be quite timid and fairly introverted right through childhood and adolescence. I got much worse in early adulthood, especially as I became more exposed to the difficulties of eating in public. While I was doing OK in my professional life, I knew I was going to struggle to be successful if something didn’t change.

Around my 30th birthday I decided to make some changes and start dealing with my issues. I knew there was no chance my eating habits were going to change, so I had to begin accepting that and working out a way forward. My marriage came to an end as I switched focus and that further forced me to take control of my life. I developed a strategy for eating out that I could live with and pretty much decided to avoid social eating at people’s homes wherever possible. From there I managed to gain a lot more confidence, to the point that I really felt like I had this under control.

Subsequently I have managed to make a reasonable success of my career, but I often think if I hadn’t made a conscious decision to stop my food phobia controlling me, I doubt it would’ve been quite the same story.

Does anybody else have an experience along the same lines?

Phil

PS Thanks for sharing the blog Claire! 

Mixing & Touching November 12, 2006

It seems to be fairly common among picky eating adults to not like mixing different foods.  Many of us prefer to keep our foods separate, and often don’t like different foods to touch or have touched eachother.

I can’t say I especially share this concern – in fact in some ways, I think I have the opposite concern: I sometimes need things to be mixed.  With foods which I do like, I often find it hard to eat more than a few mouthfuls of the same thing in succession if it is pure.  As a child, mashed potato used to be quite difficult; I always liked mashed potato, but if I had to eat more than a few mouthfuls in a row, it would make me gag.  I would have to make sure that I had enough of whatever else was on the plate to go round, and either alternate between the two things, or mix them in a mouthful.  It only needs to be a little bit of something else, but that something else needs to be there.  Ice-cream is another example – I can’t understand how other people can sit and eat a whole bowlful, and claim it is delicious.  I want to say “my mouth gets tired of it”, but “tired” isn’t really the right word for it.  “Upset” would be closer to the mark.

I think as a child, I didn’t like it if an edible food was contaminated by having touched something inedible.  But I pretty much got over that as a result of the necessities of social eating.  And, I would say, it’s helped introduce me nice and gradually to things I now love (in the right context).

Any thoughts or feelings about foods mixing and touch them?  Share them here. 

Infantile Anorexia November 12, 2006

I don’t know if this will ring bells for anyone, it does for me - thought I’d post it just in case anyone has any thoughts.  I found this in an article about research on restoring normal growth in infantile feeding disorders:

“Infantile anorexia, unlike so-called “picky eating,” is a subtype of infantile feeding disorder, and is characterized by failure to gain weight or weight loss over at least 1 month, rare interest in food or expression of hunger, an age of onset before the child is 3 years old, and the exclusion of trauma to the oropharyngeal area or other medical conditions.”

Honestly, the waters are so muddy.  That definition fits me perfectly, and it contrasts “infantile anorexia” with “picky eating”, which would imply that they have got a definition of picky eating, which is more than we have managed to find…  That’s another one for me to chase up, I guess.

Advice Online for Picky Eating Adults – A First? November 12, 2006

Up until very recently, I believed that I must be the only Picky Eating Adult on the planet.  I thought I was a freak of nature in that respect.  So of course, I never actually looked on the web for information on it, because it never occurred to me that there would be any.  I’d have been more likely to google “flying pigs” than “picky eating adults”.

Since I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one though, and in the course of setting up this site, I’ve begun to have a look at what resources are out there.  I’m trying to collect together links to as much information as possible.  In the course of all this, I was looking at the eating disorders site ANRED, which, as I’ve mentioned on the What Causes Picky Eating page does have some information on picky eating, but only in the context of children.  Until today, that is.

I emailed the site to get more details on the source of the information, and I just casually mentioned that it would be really nice if the website acknowledged that picky eating adults exist.  You know, I didn’t know whether they’d pay any attention, but I just thought I’d mention it. 

And just now, quite to my surprise, they have emailed me back, and guess what?  They’ve changed their picky eating page so that it’s not just about children!  Not only do they now acknowledge us, but they’ve also added a special section of advice at the bottom just for adults!  I know it’s a small thing, but I feel so pleased. 

I think I shall make it my project to get every eating disorder site that doesn’t already mention us to do so.  We’ve been invisible for so long.

A Note About Yahoo Picky Eaters & Parents November 11, 2006

For those of you who’ve come here via Yahoo Picky Eaters (and those of you who haven’t) I’d just like to make a few comments about the focus of this site.  I have made this site to be a safe and supportive space for Adult Picky Eaters to share with, learn from, and support eachother. 

Yahoo Picky Eaters has many members who are not picky eaters themselves, but use the group because they are parents of a picky eating child.  I feel that the needs of Adult Picky Eaters are different in important ways from those of parents of picky eating children.  We know that being a parent of a picky eating child can be very painful and distressing, but that is not what this site is about.

So if you’re a parent, I hope you will find this site interesting or even helpful, and know that we sympathise with your situation, but may I politely ask that you bear in mind that the focus and function of this site is for the needs of adult picky eaters. 

What’s Your Story? November 11, 2006

If you’d like to get the story of your own picky eating off your chest, post it here.  Don’t bottle it up, let it out.  Sharing our experiences with like-minded others can be immensely healing, and hopefully we will be able to learn from as well as support eachother.  Your story will help other picky eaters feel less alone.  You can read my story on the About Me page.  No doubt there’ll be things in it you share, and things that you don’t.  Add yours.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Contributions Welcome November 11, 2006

Following on from the previous post, if you’re an adult picky eater who’d like to contribute to this site by writing a post (or posts) rather than a comment, I’d love to hear from you.

Adult Picky Eaters – Welcome November 9, 2006

Children who are picky eaters are expected to grow out of it.  But some of us never did, no matter what our parents tried.  The medical profession could offer no help or answer to our pickiness and since our pickiness was not life-threatening, they turned their back on us and left us to our own devices. 

Now we are adults, left with extremely restricted diets, often dreading social eating situations, for fear our limited eating will embarrass us, often thinking we are the only one in the world with this problem, the only one in the world who has never eaten a fruit, or vegetable, and can’t imagine ever being able to eat a “normal” range of foods.   We are left isolated and alone, many of us going to great lengths to hide our problem from others, and limiting our lives and contact with others as a result.

If you are an Adult Picky Eater anywhere in the world, you are not alone, there are hundreds of us out there.  Don’t suffer in silence.  This website is for you.