About Me November 11, 2006

I am an Adult Picky Eater, living in London.  I am female, aged 33, otherwise healthy (as far as I know).

I’ve been a picky eater all my life, ever since I first was weaned as a baby.  When anyone would try to feed me, I just would clamp my mouth shut and refuse to eat.  Not surprisingly, I lost a lot of weight.  I was below the 5th percentile.  Nobody knew what to do, or how to make me eat.  Doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong with me, they thought I might be a non-achondraplasic dwarf, and tested me for growth hormone, but ruled it out.  It was decided I was perfectly healthy, if very small and thin, and so my mother was left to just muddle through.

Gradually I began to eat a very few things, enough to keep me going, and since the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong, that was how it was left.  But throughout my childhood I would eat no fruit, no vegetables, no eggs, no rice, no pulses, no nuts, no seafood, no pizza, no pasta, nothing spicy, and I avoided a whole bunch of other random things too.  They just didn’t seem like food to me, and I was scared to try them really, I just couldn’t do it.  I think on some level I knew it would make me gag (though I didn’t plan on finding out).

Of course, people tried to make me eat.  Doing “aeroplanes” and smiley faces with the food – I liked that, but I wasn’t going to eat it.  At one point, around age 2, I went for a fortnight without eating anything.  At the end of the two weeks, the alleged half-dozen of my grandmother’s jam tarts that I ate in one sitting were, I recall, the most delicious experience on the planet. Though I don’t remember being especially hungry prior to being presented with them.  When I was older, I’d be told I couldn’t leave the table until I’d eaten the food.  I remember resigning myself very sadly to sitting in front of that plate for the rest of my life – I had no other option, because I knew I couldn’t eat it if my life depended on it. 

Predictably, I was always small for my age.  I would have to wear clothes meant for children two or more years younger than me.  I never was quite sure how to feel about that.  School dinners were a dreadful ordeal.  Some days it would be ok, and I could at least eat or force down part of the meal.  But other days – if it was salad or coleslaw, or tapioca for eg, I’d be done for.  I couldn’t even pretend to be eating it.  And so I’d be made to sit in front of it all through the lunch break while the other children went out to play, and I was left alone at the table, with a plate of cold, congealing “food” in front of me, that wasn’t terribly well-prepared in the first place.  It doesn’t make you feel very happy, I can say.   Luckily my mother let me take packed lunches in the end.

Since childhood I’ve got a little better, I’ve “learned” to eat and even like a few more things, mostly in my twenties - I can eat pizza if it is margherita, I can eat some pasta, scrambled eggs, peanuts, bagels, fajitas (depending what’s inside), even smoked salmon.  But I’ve still never eaten or even tasted a fruit or a vegetable (though I can eat potatoes in all their forms).

When I would see my parents going out to dinner parties, I used to dread being a grown-up - when you’re a child and you can’t eat something, you can at least cry, and it’s ok because you’re just a kid.  But I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that as an adult, I’d be expected to eat all kinds of stuff, because that’s what grown-ups do, right?  Well, not this grown-up. 

When I went to university, it began to come up as an issue with social things.  I knew I couldn’t live the rest of my life in dread, so I would just say to people “I’ve got an eating thing, so please don’t be offended if I don’t eat what you cook/go out to eat”.  It’s difficult, because not many people have heard of adult picky eating.  My friends and family are accomodating and kind, but I don’t think they really understand.  People I told about it would ask what this “eating thing” was all about: Am I anorexic? No.  Am I frightened of eating in front of people? No.  Am I allergic or intolerant to things? No.  Do I have a medical condition? No. Do I just not like the stuff? I don’t know, I’ve never tried most of it, I don’t need to.   I just can’t eat a lot of what most people eat.  I don’t know why.

I would love to be able to eat the things that normal people do, but I just can’t imagine it.  I can’t imagine what it would be like.  I think something fundamental about me would have to change, but I don’t know what, or if it would be for the better or for the worse.

Recently I stumbled across a website for adult picky eaters and discovered that I’m not alone.  What a revelation that was!  I couldn’t believe it, after all these years.  And now I want that revelation for the rest of Britain’s Adult Picky Eaters.  I know you’re out there.