Reply to What worked for your picky, picky, picky eater?!?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I am 41 and may be your worst nightmare: I am still an insufferably picky eater.  I went through phases as a kid when all I would eat were flattened hamburger rolls.  I'm better than that now, much better, but still very picky.  Here are a few thoughts about what I know now and what helps me.

First, the "he's picky" label --STOP using it now.  It will stick.  It will BE his self concept.  Just stop it.

My college roommate got me to try more new foods than anyone in my life before or since.  You know what she said once about me that rocked my world?  She said, "Mary's one of the bravest people I know.  She just hasn't hit her adventurous stage yet when it comes to food."

She was so right!  I'll parachute out of a plane today, but I have absolutely no intention of ever eating hummus.  Seriously, I'd choose skydiving, bungee jumping, and being airlifted into a back alley in a foreign country over hummus.  But by just saying I hadn't reached my food adventurous stage YET, she created the possibility in my brain that one day I will be more food adventurous.  And I am!  Comparatively at least.

Your instinct that it is about control and anxiety may be spot on; for me, much more about anxiety.  (I grew up with lots of chaos, alcoholic patents, etc.  Familiar foods were comfort.  Safety.  They still are.  I'm insanely brand loyal.  I've never had, and never intend to have, tuna that is not Bumble Bee.  I don't trust other brands to taste the same, and what I want is sameness.  Predictability.  Safety.)

I disagree vehemently that hunger is the solution.  My aunt believed that and refused to feed me anything familiar when I stayed with her one summer.  I refused to eat for three days...not out of stubbornness, but fear.  Finally, famished, I forced myself to eat the spinach salad and fondue she offered, out of desperation.  A few bites in and I ran to throw up.  She still wouldn't let me have anything but water for another day, until I passed out and hit my head.  I was a GOOD kid, not a disobedient one. I didn't deserve to be starved, and I never felt so unloved and abandoned as I did when I was starved as punishment.

What HELPS is familiarity and a sense of safety.  I will NOT try something new when I am scared and hungry.  But if I feel safe and full, I might.  Eating at a new place or a new person's home us HUGELY anxiety producing.  If I can see one familiar item on the table...like, rolls, or carrots, or corn, I am immediately relieved and more likely to take a bite of something less safe.

My college roommate also helped me make connections between safe foods and new ones.  I live potatoes, for instance.  After 4 years she got me to try kidney beans by explaining that they were basically just tiny baked potatoes with jackets on.  She cut one and showed me the white fluffy potatoey stuff inside.  Now they're one of my favorite protein sources.

If you think that anxiety and safety are issues for your son re food, please don't let him go hungry as others have suggested.  Give him one safe option at every meal.  One thing on the table that he will willingly choose.  That will bring down his anxiety and increase your chances of building on that success and getting him to add one new thing.

Tell your family and others that he's just not food adventurous YET.  And love him.  It's not a character flaw or a failing on either of your parts if he's got limited food preferences.  He doesn't want to disappoint you.  Please help him feel safe and ok as he's eating. [/quote]

Not to sound snarky, I promise, but this situation seems to be at the outer edges of the bell curve of this kind of issue (picky eating) you were dealing with a bad home situation and what appears to be some kind of anxiety or other issue that interfered with your functioning that presented through eating. I'm glad its worked out for you, but all of these anecdotes sometimes are not helpful for the poster and end up putting more fear into them. Posting one's own very specific trauma is more for the poster than to help the OP.[/quote]

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