Archive for July 9, 2008

Will he grow out of it?

{ July 9, 2008 @ 1:14 pm } · { Causes, Living with it, To parents of Picky Eaters }
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Question:

My son  – 10 –  is a picky eater.  He will eat….

- raw carrots
- cut up apple
- plainly cooked chicken breast, chicken nuggets
- sausages
- bread (not butter or jam)
- roast potatos
- some crisps and chocolate
- apple juice and orange juice (no bits)

He can’t have food touching.

His mum thinks he will grow out of it and that we should do nothing.  I am concerned because I see the worry on his face when he is asked to eat something, he will gag and he suffers socially.

Should we try something/do something.

I don’t think he will simply grow out of it…

Any advice gratefully received

Answer:

It is unlikely that your son is going to grow out of this if he seems to be hyper-picky. You didn’t tell me a whole lot about your son, but this is what I will tell you about those of us who tend to grow into Adult picky eaters:
  • We became this way at a very young age…in infancy or before 2 or 3 years old
  • We would rather starve than try a bite of something we find offensive
  • We are almost all super-tasters (doctors can do a simple test to determine if someone is a super-taster, and a google search will give a couple of at home tests that can be performed). Supertasters have been proven to be excessively sensitive to a substance in vegetables that makes them taste bitter…extremely so to most supertasters (like myself)
  • Many foods that others perceive normally, we often don’t see as being food (example, some view a plate of spaghetti as look like a plate of worms, or peppercorn bacon as bacon that has been sprinkled with dirt, or a salad as a bowl of tree leaves).  Since our brain doesn’t process the item as food, we have a strong repulsion to the idea of eating that food, just like most “normal” people would have an aversion to eating sticks, grass, and other non-food substances
  • We often have an extreme sensitivity to textures and often shut out a food we normally like if the texture is different (i.e. someone won’t eat mashed potatoes [mushy] even though they will eat potato chips [crunchy]) Pickyness lasts beyond a few years. Most toddlers go through a picky stage, which they will eventually grow out of.
  • Diets are extremely limited, beyond the normal picky kid phase. For instance, they might only eat one brand of bread or peanut butter, and will be able to tell the difference if you try to trick them
  • Often have extremely sensitive gag reflexes, and will gag if forced to try a food that he/she does not like

This is just a sample of things that usually define most of us…especially when we were children.  Below I will give a few suggestions:

Some of us have a disorder called Sensory Integration dysfunction.  You can also do a Google search on this to find out a bit more information, but to give you a basic summary, people with this can either be hyper or hypo-sensitive.  Most of us are hyper-sensitive if we have the dysfunction.  The basic definition is that your senses work correctly, but your brain processes them incorrectly.

Touch: may have an extremely difficult time wearing shirts with tags, or socks with seams because it hurts or feels weird. Also texture of foods would fall into this category
Sound: Extreme sensitivity to noises
Taste: Dislike of foods with strong tastes
Smell: Can smell things that others cannot smell
Sight: Sensitivity to light and colors

If you suspect your son might have this disorder, you would need to seek help from an Occupational Therapist. Some studies have shown that kids who get treatment for this can get a little better, but diagnosis and therapy before a child is 5 is where it seems to be most helpful. After that point, it doesn’t seem to work as well.

Outside of this, I cannot offer a whole lot of help if your desire is to cure your son of this.  What we tell parents is most important is that you accept and love your child despite this condition.  Understand that for those of us with the disorder, no environmental factor could have helped us.  One study was done on identical twins separated at birth and both, despite being raised by separate sets of parents, turned out to be picky eaters. Others studies too, are starting to find that this condition is a genetic one.  Force feeding and other punishments seem to only make the problem worse, and serve to give the child psychological problems with food as well.

We suggest that you offer the child a wide range of foods, but allow him to eat as he chooses, making sure that there is always an acceptable food to him on the table.  Do not make any issue out of what the child does or does not eat.  If there is a food similar to a food your child already likes, you might attempt to offer him a similar food, making sure it is similar in taste and texture that he already likes. Try to become good at explaining tastes and textures to your child so you can attempt this, but again, don’t make a huge deal out of it if he will not try it and especially if he doesn’t like it after trying it.

Socially, it is important for you to stick up for your child, especially to parents who try to force feed him and make a huge deal of things. We have all felt the social stigma of this eating disorder, but somehow have managed to get through years of thinking we were the only ones.  Now, with a group that has reached nearly 2000 members, we know we aren’t the only ones. And we are certain that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Food Network shot a segment of us this past weekend, and once that show airs, we are certain of reaching thousands more. Eventually, we want to get this disorder studied and classified so that maybe people will stop being so overly sensitive about how we eat. It will also give parents a way to tell others why their child eats a certain way and hopefully a way of not feeling so guilty for the way their child eats.

I would also like to note that almost all of the members on our site are relatively healthy…at least as healthy as our non-picky peers. We often don’t get common illnesses as often as those around us. Almost all of us are brilliant in some capacity (extremely smart or gifted). And we are in general all extremely successful at life.  We have also found members who have lived well into their 80s and 90s with no real health problems, despite an extremely limited diet.

Ultimately, I would encourage you to join our forum. We do have other parents of picky eaters on there, and an entire section devoted to parents of picky eaters.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer them.

Jessica

{ July 9, 2008 @ 12:56 pm } · { Causes, Living with it }
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Question:
Dear Jessica,
My name is _________ and im about to start my sophmore year in high school. Ive suffered from adult picky eating my whole life. The only people who know about my condition is my family and two or three close friends. I’ve tried telling other people by sayying something along the lines of “i read about this condition in some news paper” and then i tell them about it but ill they ever do is laugh. Because of this i havnt told anybody in else in a long while.
Most people would think i live an amazing life but i dont, i cry myself to sleep at least 3 or 4 times a week. Im a captain on our schools lacrosse team, i have a 4.2 gpa, im the lead tenor in my schools competition choir, and im the nicest person to everyone i meet all the time, no matter what, i also have done amature stand up comody at some comoady clubs around.  Im not trying to sound cocky at all but because of this i date a lot and i’ve met some amazing girls that i could have seen myself falling in love with, but every time they say “lets go out to eat” i have to denny or cancel. And every time a girl says “my parents want to meet you, can you come at my house for dinner this friday” or something like that i freak and break up with the girl, if i were to cancel then i wouldnt be able to avoid it forever. I had one experience with my first gf were we went to the Olive garden, all i could eat were the breadsticks and i was laughed at by the girl and her parents and the next day she broke up with me, and i never want to go through that again…Even my friends laugh at me when i pack the same lunch every day. My lacrosse team laughs at me for being so skinny, nothing i eat is of real substance. Everyone in my family but my parents laugh at me when i leave the room at family dinners…i hear them.
I just wish there was some way to tell people without getting laughed at or being seen as a freak…what do you think i should do?
Answer:
Wow ________, that is so sad to hear. I am sorry that the people in your life are so incredibly insensitive about your condition.  It is hard to give you absolute advice on this because unfortunately, we are not in control of the reactions of others.  And some people will laugh regardless…I certainly still encounter some that do.  For me though, most of my life people just told me how I was going to be fat and die early.  I was a fairly skinny kid too, but being female, it seems that they figured the fat comment would work on me…and in a way it did. Because I became anorexic for a long while.  But it is sad that people don’t realize how much their comments and attitudes hurt and affect other people.

Your life sounds like that of a lot of our members.  We have found some articles which link super senses with giftedness. Here is a link to one: http://giftedkids.about.com/od/gifted101/a/overexcite.htm.  Almost everyone in our group can attest to the fact that we all seem to be extrodinarily gifted in one capacity or another. Many have great musical abilities, are extremely intelligent, and have successful careers. If it weren’t for the darned eating thing, life would seem great for most of us.

Unfortunately, I cannot really give you a name or cause of our condition. What I can tell you is this…our condition seems almost absolutely to be genetic. There have been studies done on twins in the UK who were separated at birth and both ended up with the PE issue.  Some people, like myself, have tons of PEs in their family up one side.  Some, on the other hand, cannot find a single one with the condition besides themselves.  But in both cases, genes are likely the main culprit.

Some eating disorder specialists are now starting to note this as a type of eating disorder, though psychological treatments have never seemed particularly helpful.

There is a well known and documented condition that all humans have in their tasting ability.  About 50% of people are normal tasters…but 25% each are either non-tasters or supertasters.  Most people in our support group seem to be supertasters, meaning that we have a higher concentration of taste buds and a better ability to taste things.  It is also well documented that supertasters in general are very sensitive to bitter foods and things that might taste sweet to others, can taste bitter to us.  Where that is especially important with us seems to be with veggies.  Many veggies have a substance in them which is known to taste bitter and which has been documented in tests to be especially offensive to supertasters, whereas non-tasters and normal tasters don’t notice it at all.

There is also a medical condition called Sensory Integration Disfunction.  You might Google it and see if it sounds at all familiar to you.  But people with SID have a problem where their brain processes the senses incorrectly, either too much or too little.  So someone with with hyper senses would be extremely sensitive to touch and taste (and the other senses). And our condition seems to deal as much with the texture of foods as it does the taste.  The only people who can diagnose and treat this condition are Occupational Therapists, but their studies have shown that the most help that can be obtained needs to happen before a kid reaches 5.  Many of us don’t qualify for this disorder, but have mild tendencies towards it. For instance, I am very sensitive to touch (the way clothes feel on my skin, if wrong, can drive me bonkers), light and chaos can give me headaches instantly (sight), taste is obvious, I am super super sensitive to smell and someone smelling wrong can lead to me feeling extremely ill (smell) , and I have always hated loud and/or chaotic noises (sound). Personally, I think there is a milder form of this disorder that they haven’t yet accepted or qualified, and that many of us suffer from that with all the other things mentioned.

Likewise there is definitely some psychological stuff that goes on, but I believe it is caused by, not the cause of our eating disorder.

As for dating….well I can tell you that I am now happily married to a wonderful, gifted man who couldn’t give a hoot about my eating, except that he wants me to be healthy. I certainly had my share of avoiding dinner dates, meeting the parents, and having people break up with me becuase of my eating.  It sucks! But I determined eventually to just be upfront about it and avoid becoming attached before they knew about it.  I told my now husband on our first date, ate like I normally do, we discussed it at length, and the rest is history.  I advise everyone to be as open about it because it prevents a lot of embarrasment, etc. in the long run.

I can’t guarentee people won’t laugh at you…especially high school kids, because they are in general not mature and are so insecure with their own faults that they feel the need to laugh at other peoples faults to keep the attention from being on them.  And that is what it is _________…they have faults of their own that they are worried will get out, so if they can keep the attention on you and your “faults”, then they don’t have to worry about being exposed themselves.  But depend upon it, they have their own deep dark secrets that they don’t want to let anyone know about.  Sadly, ours cannot be easily hidden because of its nature.

But if wanting to tell them, I would tell them that you have a genetic eating disorder and doctors are unable, as of yet, to figure out why people with this condition can’t eat many different foods.  It might also help to tell them that there are thousands of documented cases of this and until the research is done that can figure it out, no one has been able to succesfully treat one of us.  People in general, have a tendency to laugh less at a condition that they know can’t be helped by the individual because of medical purposes.  Of course, when I was in high school, people laughed at the “retarded” kids all the time, so it might not work with all high schoolers, but at least it might help with some of the more mature individuals.

I would also recommend you join the support group online. We have a few kids about your age and perhaps one of them might have some other suggestions for surviving the tough world of high school. It has been a few years since I was in high school and I would not wish to go back….regardless of what most old people say about how they would give anything to be in high school again.  Not me!

Keep your chin up.  If you have any other questions for me, etc, just send me an email. I’d be glad to help.

Jessica