Selective Eating Disorder

Picky with food Are you picky about what you choose to eat?

I used to be, a very long time ago.

However, that probably does not count, because all children are picky.

In the mean time, I achieved the performance of being able to eat almost anything, depending on what’s available.

But, if you are still very hard to please when it comes to food, although you’re an adult, then you should know that you might be actually suffering from a certain disorder.

It is called “selective eating disorder” and it manifests as being extremely picky about what one likes to eat. That means it’s not just a few courses that you avoid, like most of us do – for instance, I would prefer not eating mayonnaise. Instead, such people are particularly selective about what they eat. Nancy Zucker, director at the Duke Centre for Eating Disorders, claims that they may be suffering from a disorder.

As such, it appears that they experience food differently from the rest of us.
The trouble is, they are also confronting difficult situations in their lives, due to the fact that they cannot eat what the rest of us can. For example, they cannot really attend social events where food is served. Or, even worse, their children might pick up on their habits and consider them appropriate.

What is the cause of this disorder? As with many others, scientists are not yet sure about its roots. What they could gather from their studies and statistics was that selective eaters reject foods which caused them harm during a certain stage in their life. For instance, I used to avoid eating mushrooms because, as a child, they once caused me indigestion. Secondly, most selective eaters don’t like what most foods look or smell like, and they prefer processed and salty foods.

What to do? Well, the answer lies in being taught how to eat correctly during childhood. However, this should be done in a friendly way, not by turning meals into a burden. If you find yourself in this situation and you are already an adult, then you can become a part of a support group in order to try and diversify your meals.

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