A 54-year-old mother who claims she has never eaten a piece of fruit or tried a green vegetable, says she will only consume three types of food: white breads, including pancakes; milk and potato-based chips.
If you wish to read more about the above picky diner, here’s the link: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2224819/
I was once a picky eater although I have no recall of same. My mother told me that when I was a toddler, I only ate peanuts and drank orange juice. She called the pediatrician who reassured her that I had picked a prudent pair of provisions, and that this too would pass. And it did.
Most finicky young eaters often outgrow these habits, but some may carry the habit into adulthood. There are lots of studies on pubmed.gov about youngsters’ eating within a narrow range of food choices, but far less in the adult category. Most of the investigations end with more questions than answers, such as ‘we need more research’ or ‘is this just a choice or an eating disorder?’.
Investigators have come up with a questionnaire in hopes of sorting out whether this is a habit, an OCD sort of behavior, or a bona fide eating disorder. Here’s a few excerpts from the document highlighting the various ways picky eaters choose their food or forego eating:
Narrow Range: I eat from a very limited variety of foods [fewer than 10 different foods].
Narrow Range: I almost always avoid one or more major groups of food [for example meat, vegetables, dairy products].
Neophobia: I don’t like to try new foods.
Sensory rejection: I almost always avoid [bitter, sour, salty, sweet] foods.
Contact or Mixing: I avoid mixed foods [e.g. peas and carrots], foods with lumps, foods that touch other foods on the plate, etc.
Repetition: I eat the same meal for [breakfast, lunch, dinner] most days.'
Social anxiety: I worry when I’m invited to someone’s house to eat that I will not find anything I can eat.
This is the first study to document to show that there is a group of adult picky eaters whose symptom picture is consistent with descriptions of picky eating among children and distinct from individuals who show symptoms of eating disorders. However, there also is a group of adults that reports a mixed pattern of symptoms, which include characteristics of picky eating and disordered eating. Examination of the data on clinical correlates and impairment indicate that picky eating is associated with lower levels of clinical severity than is either a mixed pattern of picky eating and eating disorder symptoms or eating disorder symptoms alone. J. E. Wildes, PhD
And so on. Sort of takes away the pleasure of eating, doesn’t it. Here’s examples of probably picky eaters from my clinical days.
There was the worried, overweight patient who ate her way past the benefits of gastric bypass surgery by eating a bag of Hot Tamales candy each day. A man who dined on the same exact meal three times each day over the five years that I took care of him. Another who drank 18 colas a day supplemented by cereal in the a.m. and a hamburger in the p.m. And finally, my daughter, who happily ate smooth creamy stuff but scraped anything with texture off her tongue for the first 2 & 1/2 years of her life.
He ate them of course.
I live to eat and only wish I could be more adventurous. I feel the need to apologize for my inability to eat spicy food -- chilies of all kinds are out, cilantro. (I know that's a thing.) But
ginger snaps? too gingery. rhubarb? why not skip it and just eat a handful of sugar?.. and on and on. And the aging palate/gut continues to shrink. I put a wonderful slice of pear in my mouth the other day, and felt my sinuses start to swell! Same thing happened with mangos. Sigh