Pin It
MNN.COM›Food›

Healthy Eating

Adult picky eaters now recognized as having a disorder

Selective eaters feel they have very few food options.

By LiveScienceMon, Nov 29 2010 at 1:39 PM EST
 12

man crossing arms in front of a plate of food Photo: dharmabumx/Flickr
He's 63 years old, but Bob Krause admits he still eats "a 4-year-old's dream diet."
 
Krause likes peanut butter, crackers, grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate milk and little else. More adventurous meals look like "a plate of barf," he told LiveScience. 
 
"If I could snap my fingers and change, I would," he said, explaining his pickiness helped ruin two marriages, limited his career options and makes most social occasions sources of stress.
 
Researchers think Krause could be one of thousands suffering from a previously unrecognized illness: selective eating disorder, more commonly known as very picky eating. Instead of having a couple foods they'd rather avoid, the way most of us do, people with selective eating disorder feel there are very few foods they are even capable of eating.
 
"People who are picky aren't doing this just to be stubborn," said eating researcher Nancy Zucker of Duke University, explaining that extremely picky eaters experience food differently than the rest of us.
 
Zucker, who is also the director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders, first became interested in selective eating, because adult picky eaters were walking in, looking for help. Their eating behavior was getting in the way of their job or social life, or they were worried about being bad role models for their kids, she said. [How to Handle Kids' Picky Eating]
 
How many adult picky eaters are there?
Most people with this disorder are highly embarrassed by their limited food repertoire and will go to great lengths to keep it hidden, either by avoiding social events that involve food or drinks (which ones don't?), or by making up excuses to avoid eating, such as fibbing about an upset belly.
 
To get a sense of the problem's prevalence, in July 2010, Zucker and her colleagues put up an online registry, including a lengthy survey, for picky eaters. The initial response overwhelmed expectations: In less than five months, 7,500 people have fully registered. (More than 11,000 have started the survey without completing it.)
 
The researchers plan to do a formal analysis of the survey data early next year, but preliminary results suggest that selective eating disorder is separate and distinct from other disorders, Zucker said. The survey was carefully constructed to rule out conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or anorexia and bulimia, for example.
 
Nature or nurture?
Whether extreme pickiness has its roots in a person's biology or psychology is not yet clear. But there seem to be some common themes, suggesting either or both, among people like Krause.
 
Selective eaters tend to like similar foods, with an emphasis on the bland and processed. They love salt. French fries are a favorite. Bacon is the only meat many of them will eat. Fruit, vegetables and alcohol are snubbed for the most part — with light beer and raw carrots being possible exceptions.
 
Could they be supertasters? That is, people who, because of their genetic makeup, taste certain flavors more acutely than average tasters?
 
Maybe, Zucker told LiveScience, but that isn't enough to explain the selectivity. After all, strong tastes aren't necessarily bad tastes and many supertasters are not finicky eaters. And Zucker's research suggests picky eaters reject foods based on sensory qualities other than taste: They don't like the look or smell of certain (most) foods.
 
"Most foods do not look like food to my brain," Krause explained.
 
Grown-up picky eaters also tend to have early negative associations with food, Zucker said. Many report having had severe acid reflux as a baby or childhood gastrointestinal issues, for example.
 
Unpleasant associations may also be learned at the dinner table, she said.
 
Preventing permanent pickiness
Kids are at greater risk of becoming picky adults "anytime the food environment is coercive or tense," Zucker said,
 
Family meals should be fun, she said. They are not a time to argue, reprimand about grades, or harass about eating habits.
 
And dining together needs to happen regularly, she stressed, so kids can watch others enjoying a variety of foods and be exposed to different smells — even if they don't eat much themselves.
 
Registered dietician, author and family therapist Ellyn Satter agrees. Even if selective eating disorder has a biological component, Satter told LiveScience, it's a parent's job to help children learn eating habits that will serve them well as adults. [10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders]
 
"Everyone has got something and everyone has to learn to cope. And children need to learn to deal with their predilections," Satter said. Otherwise, it can become a life-long problem, where they are embarrassed to eat in public, she cautioned.
 
Krause, however, thinks there is nothing his parents could have done to help him. And, as much as he would love a cure, he is pessimistic. He runs an online support group for picky eaters and among its 1,700 active members, he has heard only one success story: A selective eater was able to expand her food repertoire enough to find something to eat at most restaurants.
 
Even Zucker, who is actively treating selective eaters, admits, "We don't know yet how much they can be pushed."
 
Instead, Zucker focuses on helping picky eaters overcome their embarrassment and feel entitled to their own preferences. The most important component, she said, is teaching friends and family members "the person is not doing this to be willful and bratty."
 
Only in this supportive context may a picky eater feel safe enough to try something new — but there is no guarantee they will like it.
 
"We don't all have the same experience when we eat," Zucker said.
 

This article was reprinted with permission from LiveScience.
 
Related on LiveScience: 

You might also like:
Related Topics: Food, Healthy Eating, Mental Health

Comments

Follow this conversation
Add your comment
View:

anonymous
Jean Klackney 08/02/2011 18:06 PM

I am a 18year old female and nobody seems to have any answers to why I can only eat the same 5 foods for 16years. It is not that I'm stubborn and won't try new foods. I would give anything to be able and eat something other than chicken nuggets & French fries twice a day for the last 16 years. My parents have spent untold amounts of money to so called "eating specialists, and every other SPECIALISTS" all with ZERO results. I am hypersensitive to different types of clothing, large crowds.... More

anonymous
JP 05/03/2011 01:24 AM

Picky eater here *puts hand up*. I never thought of it as a disorder before, just the way I was. We all like and dislike different things. I just happen to dislike more than most people. My parents never catered to my food issues and I learned to pick out what I didn't like and more importantly, to cook for myself.
One point I completely agree with from the article is that it seems to be sensory related more than strong taste or flavour. Most foods I don't eat because of the smell,.... More

anonymous
Ginger 04/30/2011 21:40 PM

I am an extremely picky eater, but I do not feel as if it's a disorder. My parents just never told me to finish my veggies and as I got older, I still feel no need to eat them (not blaming this on my parents either. I am a grown adult and could grow some and eat my veggies). Like someone else said on here, we need to stop thinking everything is a disorder. Pretty soon, everything is going to be a disorder. I'm not ignorant for thinking that, I just think some people need to take responsibility.... More

anonymous
Elizabeth Bernabe 04/29/2011 10:56 AM

When my baby was born he was a good eater. I had resided in Puerto Rico for the first two years of his life. While living there my son had a few illnesses he went through regarding his stomach and this began at the age of 1 1/2. He use to pick on anything and everything I was eating. He began to say no to everything i gave him to eat. I fed him baby food till he was 3 just to make sure he had the vitamins he needed. Also gave him PediaSure. He is now 8 and has a hand full of things that he.... More

anonymous
Bob 04/29/2011 10:29 AM

To those people below me I would say this. Imagine being in a room full of people eating. Say...cheese. Everyone loves it right? the smell, the taste, the texture.

then imagine not being able to participate in that experience, because the taste and texture of it make you violently physically ill.

sometimes the smell alone is enough to make you gag and fight the urge to wretch.

people who are picky eaters have this reaction not to just one or two foods, but to MOST foods..... More

anonymous
David 04/29/2011 03:10 AM

I really hope the people releasing this "studies" are just dumb and at fault of anything better to do, because the option is really frightening: they are trying to push everything that deviates just a tiny bit from the median into a "disorder" that you can "treat" using "medicine" (a.k.a. pills you can buy from TV ads).

The most telling part of all this is how this kind of thing doesn't fly *at all* outside of the US. It doesn't get any space in the media, and if did people would call.... More

anonymous
holdOnThere 04/30/2011 11:23 AM

The subjects of concern where not deviating slightly. Nor where the "studies" pushing people toward a suggested diagnosis. In fact the subjects self identified that they had an issue.

It is good to be sceptical but be careful not to be mislead be your own preconceptions.

I know someone like this and there are at most five things they will eat. This in and of itself does not make it an issue. The fact that it affects his life style, relationships, and social interactions.... More

anonymous
halfknot 04/28/2011 20:39 PM

PBS nova did a show on the discovery of a bitter gene

anonymous
Zach Rosenberg 04/28/2011 18:10 PM

It seems like we need to stop trying to convince ourselves that everything's a disorder. Let's just imagine, for one second, that maybe picky eaters ARE just stubborn. They've gone their whole life having too many options, and by the time they hit middle school, they've been conditioned to learn that their habits work.

The "scientific" study done only takes into account an ONLINE registry. This presumes that the people taking the survey are wealthy enough to afford internet service. I.... More

anonymous
Elizabeth Bernabe 04/29/2011 11:06 AM

This is a site to help those who have this problem.. If you are no where close to having these issues or know of someone having these issues then hey do you and keep your opinions to yourself. I am poor, I am going through financial problems and my child is not the only child i have. He is tho the only one I worry about when it comes to nutrition. I love to eat and I will make any meal if it helps my child, but as i said he has had a handful of things he eats and if I make my child eat.... More

anonymous
Campbeln 04/29/2011 02:52 AM

...and as a "not all too picky" picky eater myself, I can't say that I support the labeling of my eating habits a "disorder", but get off your high horse!

For me, trying something new has the same amount of stress and anxiety that many people experience with say, bungy jumping. Will it hurt or kill me? Almost definitely not, but why risk it?

So... would you go so far as to say that people afraid of heights should just suck it up and take the plunge? Or is that an acceptable.... More

anonymous
Elizabeth Bernabe 04/29/2011 11:10 AM

I know my baby has a problem and will affect him later in life, so I don't care what it's called as long as I know I can get him help and not with pills. Why do we all worry about the label that is put on everything? So what, if you have this problem worry about the solution and not the name...

Add your comment

Sign in with one of these accounts or just add your comment below.
Used only for emailed comments and will not be displayed with your post
Notify me with an email when other people comment on this article.
The posting of advertisement, profanity or personal attacks is prohibited.
Click here to review our Terms of Use