Real lives.
In their own words.

Paul wrote the following

If I try and explain the problem. Its not how much or how little I eat, no binging or purging, it's what I eat. I have read numerous times that EDs are a symptom of another problem. What if food is the problem?

Many people suffer to one degree or another from irrational phobias, often relating to a traumatic experience. What if that phobia is food? Many people dislike a particular food due to its association with an experience. Now take that to its extreme.

Until the age of 6-7, I was continually ill and in and out of hospital, whooping cough, tuberculosis and meningitis, anyone of which could have proved fatal, with the usual run off the mill childhood illnesses filling in the gaps. During this time, it was often very difficult to keep food down, all I could keep down was fairly bland. Overtime, bearing in mind my age, this created an association food cause me harm, this included any form of meat, veg, cheese or anything with any real taste. I wont go into what my daily diet usually consists, but suffice to say that their is nothing really that you could term as a socially expectable meal.

As with any phobia, there is a tendency to avoid situations where you are going to have to confront it, such as eating socially. My parent's attempts at solving the problem only made matters worse, first were attempts at force feeding which only served to reinforce the problem. Probably the cruelest thing was trying to 'shame' me into eating normally, effectively making me feel like an abnormal freak only serving to make me more self conscious of a problem that I felt was outside of my control.

I am very secretive regarding the problem, most of my friends don't even know, I avoid any event where I could be 'outed' like the plague and those that I cant get out of such as invites to relatives weddings etc will cause anxiety attacks similar to those many of you may experience.

I do suffer from low self esteem, lack of confidence and depression, mainly though not feeling like a normally fully participating member of the human race and as I get older becoming a very lonely social leper.

I am now nearly 34, I know my behavior is totally irrational, I am an otherwise intelligent graduate running my own computer company.

I have had comments like why don't you just try. What people don't realize is that my body reacts to what they consider as a normal diet in the same way as heir's would is asked to eat something they wouldn't consider as food or if they were eating something, then found out they were eating their pet cat for example. You cant swallow, if you do your throat goes into spasm and you start reaching. This is compounded by the fact that my taste buds/palette are uneducated and trigger this reaction to 'non food'. This reaction then goes someway to reinforcing the original phobia and you end up going round in circles.

I have tried getting help at different times. I have found doctors to be totally unhelpful, often failing to comprehend the problem or its impact on me neither mentally or socially let alone the totally imbalanced diet. To get them to realize the scale of the problem, I would have to tell them what I lived on, which is something it took a therapist many weeks to get out of me. Unfortunately at that time, I had just come out of a relationship and facing being alone again for the first time in 8 years and the impact of my eating if I were not to lead the life of a total hermit. The therapist spent most of her time trying to stop me going totally unhinged.

I can't be the only 'freak' out there.

I have always been an extremely picky eater and am now 35 years old. I have a sixteen year old daughter who eats pretty well, and then I have an 8 year old son who hardly eats anything. He hates eating, throws his food away when no one is looking, and would live off of french fries and ice cream if he had the choice.

Like me, he finds one thing that he likes to eat and will try eating it every day for a month until he gets tired of it and no longer likes it. His diet is limited to: french fries, mashed potatoes (if there is no pepper or spices in them because to him that resembles bugs), fish sticks, macaroni & cheese, cinnamon frosted kelloggs poptarts, corn (not on the cob), bacon, bread and cheese bread sticks from pizza hut, cinnamon toast, ice cream (vanilla only). He used to also eat: chicken nuggets from McDonalds, spaghetti, apples, and applesauce. He has decided that he no longer likes those things. To make matters worse, he is allergic to eggs, and breaks out in severe hives if he eats anything that is too eggy (french toast is too egg, bread is okay usually). He also can not eat any peanut products. (oils, peanut butter, etc.)

Reading your site was like reading my own words. I grew up on a farm and had 140 pigs at the age of 14, and had two cows. I remember consistently getting spankings for not eating. I remember wadding my meat up into my napkin or putting it in my jeans pockets and flushing it down the toilet at a very early age. I would literally get sick to my stomach at the table because I would work myself up into a nervous wreck as I thought about putting things into my mouth. Meat was always my major problem because of the texture. Smells great to me - but to actually chew it makes me want to hurl. :-) My parents always my issue with meat was because of my association between my animals and the food. Maybe it is subconsciously--not sure, but I don't believe so. The thought of getting a hard piece of grizzle or bone in my mouth is just beyond my comprehension. Since the age of sixteen I have considered myself a vegetarian. If you ask me what vegetables I eat though, you would find that it is very limited when it comes to anything cooked. I do eat almost all vegetables raw though. I eat potatoes in any way that they can be made, as long as they are not mixed with some other vegetable or meat. Mashed, fried, scalloped, etc. Eat a casserole - NEVER. I don't like things mixed together. I never pick up two pieces of foods together on a fork and put them into my mouth at once.

I too will eat bacon, but only if it is burnt and only if it does not have a "chew" to it - then it is too much like a regular piece of meat to me.

I have learned to adapt to my eating disorder, have foods that I eat that compensate and take vitamins, and take food dishes when I go to barbecues that I know I will eat. I can live with it. What concerns me though is that my son's issues are deeper than mine. He will not eat any beans (ranch style, chili beans, refried beans, green beans), heck as you can see from the list - he hardly eats anything. And I am not exaggerating - if it is not on that list, he does not eat it.

Are you hearing a lot of feedback from others as a result of your website. I am in San Antonio, Texas and would like to find a doctor for my son who takes me SERIOUSLY when I try to discuss my son's eating habits with him. My current doctor simply indicates, "if he gets hungry enough, he will eat". You and I both know that is not true. After a couple of days without food, the hunger pains become very minimal. It is typically a headache that will instead prompt me to eat. Luckily, I can prepare food that I love and when I have something that I *like* eating, I can eat a BUNCH. :-) I am wondering how much of my son's problems are environmental vs. genetic disposition.

Any info you can provide would be appreciated. How refreshing it is to know that I am not the only "strange" person out here who has this issue. :-)

Lori Technical Recruiter and a Picky Eater

My son just sent me the link to your website. It sure sounded familiar.

I used to think that I was the only one that had this problem. But then I had my fifth son. He has it too.

Until he was born I thought I was the only one with the problem. I would think back to as far as I could go and I always had it. But since my son was born I think we are born with it. From the day he was born he didn't want to eat. Well, suck a bottle. The nurses picked up on it and said that he was little and maybe he wore himself out sucking on the nipples of the bottle so she gave me a handful of nipples for premature babies. That helped some. But he didn't like baby food from the start. He is an adult now and still has it.

I am now 59 going to be 60 in Sept. I even came up with a name for it. JABED. For Joyce and Bens eating disorder. It feels like we just got jabbed with a curse when we got this.

Back in the spring of 2000 a program called 20-20 did a show about kids who didn't like to eat but seemed perfectly healthy. It sounded so familiar. But they were resorting to putting feeding tubes in these kids. The parents wanted to know if when the kids grew up if they would be anorexic. Nooooo, this is totally different. The doctors didn't get then. I wrote them a letter but they never responded to it.

When I was young my parents would tell me that I would never be able to have babies if I didn't eat better. I have six children.

This disorder never goes away. It is like a curse and it will cause you to loose friends and etc. It will cause you to be talked about and made to feel like there is something terrible wrong with you. You will be made fun of and etc. Every timer there is a function that there is going to be a meal it is like giving me a panic attack. I think, to myself, "Oh no, I wonder what they will be serving, I wonder if there will be anything I like, I wonder how I am going to try to cover the fact that I don't have much on my plate, I hope nobody notices, I don't want to draw attention to myself and etc." But it never fails. Someone will notice and ask me if I am sick, or "Is that all you are having?' By then everyone is looking at me.

Now my husband knows I have this problem and he lets me slide food onto his plate. But he still don't get it. He can't understand how I could be raised and not like food. Yes, even he upsets me when it comes to this because I explain it to him and he puts up with it but don't understand it.

If we go visit relatives or friends we have to tell them ahead of time that we are bad eaters. We don't want them to think that they are bad cooks or insult them so we have to swallow our pride and admit to a major fault and nobody likes to admit and tell people that what their faults are. Even after telling them I am still made fun of. This gets to me after awhile. After trying to laugh with them to take some of the hurt away after a while it isn't funny anymore.  When I get hungry I can't go to just any restaurant because there might not be a thing on the menu I like. I will go to buffets because usually there is at least something I might like. But not Mexican or Chinese or a buffet like that. Usually I get the fries or a grilled cheese sandwich. I do like pizza but only plain cheese pizza. I don't want tomato chunks on it or green peppers or anything else.

I like milkshakes but only vanilla, chocolate, banana flavored, or strawberry flavored. If they have strawberries or bananas in them then I don't want them. Same for ice cream. When I was younger and I would go out on a date with a boy or a group of friends I wished that they didn't suggest we go out to eat. This creates problems when you are at dating age. We ourselves wish that we liked to eat food like everyone else so that we could enjoy the food and also not have to worry about it.. There are so many things in the society today that revolve around food.

Joyce - A Picky Eater

My picky eating started as a baby when my parents tried to switch me from baby food to table food. When I didn’t make the change they tried to put me back on baby food and I wouldn’t go.

They took me to doctor after doctor but were always told that I’d grow out of it and that in the mean time I was getting protein from peanut butter, calcium from milk, etc, etc. and seemed healthy.

I am now 35 and the mother of 4 very healthy children (one picky, 3 not) but my diet has changed very little since I was a child. I’d have to say I’ve survived mostly on creamy JIF peanut butter and Welch’s grape jam sandwiches on Autumn Grain bread most of my life.

(I currently survive on PB toast, cereal, buttered noodles, and pepperoni pizza.) Taste is most of the issue to me, especially as I’ve gotten older but texture does play a huge role. Like the fact that I love how potatoes smell and can handle the taste but the texture will always be too much for me.

I hear picky eating being labeled as a fear and though I do experience notable fear in trying new foods I know it was not always that way, nor does it have anything to do with why I don’t eat most foods. Food simply tastes bad to me.

The fear I experience, I believe, stems from a childhood packed with horrifying dinner table experiences. Force feedings, being fed the same plate of food (sometimes for days) until I ate it, having to chew things, that were making me gag and vomit, at least 40 times with no drink and no nose plugging (a picky eater must) and all the while feeling like you’re starving to death because you are SO hungry and there’s nothing served you can eat.

Being called out at EVERY meal, the embarrassment and put downs at family gatherings, public functions, school, or at friend’s homes. Being humiliated into putting something into my mouth only to be laughed at and ridiculed when I gagged or threw it up. I can’t imagine anyone not getting some sort of complex after facing that every day of their life, multiple times a day.

So I do get nervous when new food is put before me. I anticipate it will taste bad (though there have been rare exceptions to that rule), I’m going to disappoint everyone who is watching hopefully, and I’m going to embarrass myself when I gag or puke. My heart does race a little.

I, however, don’t have issues with trying new foods in the privacy of my own home with no one around. I often try new and old things to see if I remember correctly how they tasted or to see if I can work it into my very limited diet. I’ve been trying for 10 months now to get down a salad but still can’t get past the lettuce.

Having an online community of friends has been a tremendous support! I am a very strong person despite my eating habits. I’m very healthy (haven’t even needed to go to the doctor for even a cold in almost 10 years, maybe more),

I’ve had 4 healthy pregnancies and children, I’m happily married, I run two home businesses, volunteer in the community and at church, and yet people still look down on me when I’m sitting at the table with them eating a dinner roll instead of the main course.

I would love to know why I am the way I am. I would love to be able to hand out a doctor’s note to all the bullies at every table I sit at who insist I’d eat if it was a matter of life and death, or that my parents went to easy on me (quite the opposite actually), or that I’m just trying to get attention. It’s the topic at every table I sit at and it gets SO old.

Just let me not like some of the things you like and be okay with it…please?

My moms says I was a picky eater since I was an infant.  She says the first time she noticed was when she tried to give me chocolate milk in a bottle (shame on you mom)  The bottle was clear and I could see brown milk in it.  I refused to drink it and kept telling her  " No Dirty". My mom was a good mom.  At home she would offer me what everyone else had, but always had "Trish food"

She also always made my school lunch and when she could not afford to pack a lunch for me she had made a friendship with the lunch ladies who would keep and eye for me and they would let me sit in the kitchen office and eat something Trish friendly.  It worked out well for years. 

The 4th grade rolled around.  I knew it was going to be a bad day as soon as school started and the announcement was that lunch was tuna salad on lettuce beds with rolls  and peaches.  Not one thing I would eat.  I was dreading lunch time and was feeling sick from anxiety because even the smell of tuna makes me sick . 

True even for present day. Lunch came and I was gagging as soon as we walked into the lunch room.  When I got to the food line one of the lovely lunch ladies said, "come on back Trish we have something for you."  That is when everything went to hell.  My teacher said," No she will eat what everyone else has with everone else." 

I remember the tears started falling I could not breathe I knew I was going to die. I refused to carry the tray so the teacher carried it and put it infont of me and said  "EAT".  I dug around in the food to make it look like I ate some, but she was not having it.  She came over took a big scoop of tuna salad and shoved it into my mouth.  I then barfed all over her. 

I ran out.  I wanted to disappear.  I ran to the bathroom and washed my mouth and couldn't get the smell or the taste away.  All I saw at the moment was a can of Lysol. I grabbed it and sprayed it into my mouth.  It instantly burned my mouth up and gave me blisters.  I didn't care.  I ran and hid behind the bleachers crying. 

I was there for a while until I heard my mom calling me.  She rescued me and gave me a big hug.  She turned around and told the principal, "I want to see her now"  Talking about said teacher.  Just then teacher popped her head into gym door and my mom lunged.  The principal grabbed her before any harm was done.  And told my mom if she didn't leave property that the police were going to be called.  My mom was so irate. 

Still to this day I wish she would have hit that teacher.  Come to find out... as soon as the teacher told the lunch ladies I could not have Trish food they ran in the office and called my mom.  She was on her way to the school as everything happened.

Mom tried to get me out of that school, but it was a small town and my parents could not afford to put me into Catholic school so I was stuck.  I got made fun of every day after that.  I skipped school all the time. 

It followed me to highschool where after one extremely bad day of joking about Trish I snapped because the teacher would not let me out of the room and I threw a school laptop toward him and was expelled.  Never to spend another day in a school ever again.  I was 16. 

I got a GED and always wanted to go to college but I can not do it. I am too scared.  I am still scared of food.  Even now my friends pick on me about food stuff and it hurts so bad. 

One of my husbands bestfriends  favorite thing to write on facebook when status update is "Trish you are bonkers" something so simple bothers me so much.

I get told I am unhealthy because I am 5'6 and 103 lbs.   I wish I could be normal. And now I am embarrassed again.  I have never shared this story before.