Hello! I'm 17 years old, and I've been a picky eater for that long. For years my mom tried to force me to eat all sorts of food, and I'd sit at the dinner table for hours until she let me go to bed. I always thought it was because I was so young, that my tastebuds would develop (is that even a real thing?) and I'd start to like other foods. Unfortunately I've come to the realization that I am completely unable to try new foods. I feel as if I eat a lot; I eat chicken, pizza, mozzarella cheese sticks, bagels, toast, french fries, and a lot of junk food. When it comes to real food, it isn't much. By chicken I mean chicken nuggets, my bagels are plain, french fries with no sauce, etc. I've recently gained so much weight, but I'm extremely active so I completely blame it on my eating habits. I wish so much to be able to eat differently, and reading all of these posts of adults 50+ years old stuck in the same boat as me is terrifying. I'm scared for future relationships, health issues, etc. There is no healthy way for me to lose weight; the first step to being healthy is eating healthy. Lucky me, I decided to be picky and only like the bad foods. I want a way out of this, I don't want to have to fill my stomach up on awful (but great-tasting) foods forever. I hate that there's ways to essentially "fix" or treat anorexia, bulimia, etc., but a picky eater is just called stubborn. None of us would eat off the kids menu if we had another choice. It interferes with everything. Like I said, I'm 17 and active, so team dinners were a weekly thing for me in high school. I either avoided the dinners altogether or wouldn't eat, making up some excuse about being sick. I feel that I do get sick more often because of the unhealthy foods I eat. I KNOW it has to change, and I KNOW there has to be a way. So if you have read all of this, and you know a way out of this, please please please give me some advice. I can't live the rest of my life like this, it's unhealthy. I wish I just knew what steps I could take to fixing this, but it's not as simple as just trying a bunch of random things and eating it until I like it. I feel that will worsen my problem and cause me to hate new foods even more. This has turned into a novel, so I'll end my sob story about needing chicken nuggets 24/7 here. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.