To ask why people hate fussy eaters?

[StarlingMurmuration]

I can see why people might find it annoying if they've invited a fussy eater to dinner and he or she won't eat anything that's been prepared, but why does it seem to annoy people otherwise, if they're unaffected? I've often seen it said on MN that being a picky eater is "attention seeking", is that what many people think?

Full disclaimer: I have a lot of issues with the texture or smell of certain foods, and have done since I was a child. I'm a lot better now (e.g. up til my late 20s I couldn't bear things with sauce on them, and I had to separate all my food out, I couldn't take a mixed bite of things like veg AND meat) and now I'm always willing to try something new but there are certain things I can't eat without heaving, so I refuse to attempt them. I still find eating at people's houses quite stressful because I worry they'll serve something I don't like, and even eating in restaurants can be hard work because there's often only one or at the most two things I fancy on the menu. I swear it's not attention-seeking - I hate people noticing when I don't clear my plate, or commenting on my fussiness. I'd love to feel able to eat anything, it would make my life so much easier.

I cook separate, special meals for my incredibly, horribly fussy friends only to watch them poke it around the plate (having previously said they like it) and then I smile and tell them there's no need to feel obliged to eat it and to help themselves to toast or anything from the kitchen, or to even order something from takeaway if that's better.

Privately I think that they are disgustingly rude, self-indulgent and ridiculous, and are making their children exactly the same way and completely messing up their relationships with food. How you feel about something and how you treat someone can be two different things.

(And yes, agoraphobics should get out more and food phobics should try more food. Exposure therapy is recognised as the most successful way of treating phobias! Also, anyone who was having treatment for food phobia would have my utter support - but most aren't and that's because it's not a genuine phobia just a faddy dislike that they want attention for).

Reading the OP brings back so many memories for me, I was just like that as a child. I was a terribly fussy eater, and found it incredibly difficult to eat many foods, and would often heave when trying to force things down to 'please' parents or when eating at friends' houses etc. It was sheer hell sometimes. There are still - decades later - a few things I can't manage without gagging (sliced banana, extra-slippery new potatoes, aubergine, avocado) so I just avoid them altogether.

A couple of years ago I had to have some fairly extensive dental work done. The dentist was having terrible trouble, as he put instruments in my mouth I would retch uncontrollably. He had to fit a special plastic guard-thing to protect the roof of my mouth so I couldn't feel it being touched.

The dentist said that I had the strongest gag reflex he had ever come across. After the treatment I asked him whether the gag reflex might be the cause of my earlier food issues and he said definitely yes, and that people with a strong gag reflex often had eating difficulties, particularly with textures.

There we are then - after more than 40 years, it turns out I wasn't a spoilt little fusspot over food, there was a physical cause after all.

"Nor does it explain the 'I'll eat it cooked but if it's raw I just can't bear to put it in my mouth self indulgent nonsense. You can bear to, you just don't want to (not you, the pp)."
Your main problem here seems to be my choice of words, which is weird but whatever... Since you seem so concerned about it.
I love finding new foods that I can eat, or realizing that I can now tolerate textures/flavours that I couldn't in the past. Which I could only know about by periodically retrying them, which I do. I love it. Because I love food. Really. I was raised by foodies, and we literally drove each other to tears, but I would love to be one of them. (Actually, real foodies are horribly fussy about food. They just do it in an apparently socially acceptable way.)

As for the primal instinct to cooperate and share that somebody mentioned, I'd also like to point out that the instinct to avoid food that you're unfamiliar with or that you think (correctly or incorrectly) might be dangerous is pretty damned primal as well. Otherwise all those hunter-gatherers sharing food would have poisoned themselves long since hence.

dodo! Wow. My dentist has said the exact same thing to me about my gag reflex! I hadn't made any connection to that and food textures.

My DH is dentist phobic and gets extremely agitated and anxious in the run up to appointments, I practically have to coax him through the door like he was a small child. He also has a very strong gag reflex as soon as the dentist goes near his mouth but he has no food issues.

What's your point? Do you think dodo's dentist was lying?

I know a girl who is being turned into a fussy eater by her mother who I suspect has a mild case of munchausens by proxy. Amongst trying to convince her DD and GP that she has asthma, she's convinced the DD that
She's allergic to nuts. Despite the all clear from the hospital after hundreds of tests, DD won't eat nuts because her mum tells her she is allergic to them.

When I said I couldn't get her an ice cream like the other children because the van said the ice cream may contain nuts and she told me she couldn't eat her breakfast because she was allergic to it, that didn't go down well. What are you supposed to do!!!

Fussy eaters who pick and choose when it suits. "I don't like cheese, Only melted cheese" wtf? "I can't eat fish, only tuna"

Very annoying, very unattractive, very attention seeking.

Gaggers are often phobic because it's embarrassing and it's a cycle of frustration. I've never been aware of a food related gagger but some of my patients have developed it much later in life.

I don't think anyone's said dodo was lying OP, sounds more like an observation from baltimore genuine phobias/aversions are often incredibly complex and can't be easily explained.

Sorry. It just seemed to me that she was implying that that couldn't be the cause of anyone's food issues because her husband was fine.

No not at all Startling just that the two are not necessarily always connected even if they sometimes are.

Having said that, I'll say the same to all the food gaggers that I say to my DH, the dental phobic gagger. It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy where you fixate on what you expect to happen so much that it does happen. You don't gag because of the food per se, you gag because the have already told yourself in advance that the food will be so revolting that you will probably gag. And of course you do gag. My DH gags as soon as the dentist goes near his mouth because he's worked himself up into a state of anxiety over it and because he remembers gagging last time, he immediately starts gagging again!

I don't think that's necessarily true. I've gagged unexpectedly on foods I really like and usually can eat with no problem because the mouthful I've taken has touched the back of my mouth "wrong", but it hasn't stopped me eating them next time. A mouthful of carrots caused me to gag the other day, and carrots are one of my my favourite veg. No idea why, they just caught my gag reflex. I ate the rest of the carrots without an issue.

It was a hundred times worse when I was pregnant. It seemed like all my senses were massively more sensitive. I couldn't open the fridge without gagging at the smell, but I was quite happy to cook and eat food if DP took it out of the fridge for me.

No not at all Startling just that the two are not necessarily always connected even if they sometimes are.

Interesting. Conversely, I have a really strong gag reflex - they couldn't take an x-ray at the dentists because I couldn't hold the things between my teeth without gagging. I can't clean my tongue with a toothbrush, even the front, without gagging, and sometimes I have trouble with the back teeth. But I don't have any issues with food texture at all. So, it works both ways.

I cook separate, special meals for my incredibly, horribly fussy friends only to watch them poke it around the plate (having previously said they like it) and then I smile and tell them there's no need to feel obliged to eat it and to help themselves to toast or anything from the kitchen, or to even order something from takeaway if that's better.

Google, that's what annoys me. If someone's OKd a particular food for someone to cook and they still sit there and poke it round their plate, that's really rude and manipulative and attention seeking. Why can't they eat it if they've deemed it one of their acceptable foods? I think where you're going wrong there is offering them something else. If they want to behave like a child - and this is childish, if it's something they've already said they can eat - then treat them like one and don't give them an alternative. Why should you incur extra expense or effort because someone's being ridiculous?

When the British army began trying to feed the poor starving inmates of Belsen, the prisoners were unable to eat the very sweet 'food' provided. It had been manufactured for an Indian famine in the 1930s and had been made to suit the Indian preference for sweet foods.

It was only when a British rabbi acquired a paprika and added it to the rations that the survivors of that terrible place were able to eat. It surprised me that starving people could not bring themselves to eat something unpalatable to them but it seems it was the case.

I hasten to say that the camp survivors were not being fussy. They were at such a level of starvation and so compromised digestively that food had to be introduced very carefully in small quantities. The sweetness was a barrier they could not overcome in their weakened state.

'some' paprika

That doesn't surprise me actually nipple because when your body has gone into a deep and lasting state of ketosis through starvation you cease to be hungry anyway - that's how anorexics and hunger strikers do it. And if you haven't eaten sweet foods for a long time you become very sensitive to the taste of sugar and things can easily taste incredibly sweet.

I think this is more likely to have happened. Many well meaning tommies gave prisoners their rations, which were high caloric. Many prisoners died after eating such food. They also died after eating the rations delivered to the camp. The taste was immaterial. Digestion of anything was impossible for many, tragically.

On the unexpected medical causes of fussiness, I have all my life had times when I really couldn't eat at all - attempting to swallow anything had me gagging.

When I was in my 30s and had to have treatment for back pain, a specialist examining asked me if I sometimes had trouble swallowing. I asked him how he knew and he said some muscle or other around my throat was overdeveloped, so when I was tense would compress the oesophagus. And food would literally get stuck.

And all along I was thinking it was some psychosomatic something or other and trying to force myself to eat...