I created pickyeateradventures.com to record my experiences as I tried on my own to expand my diet. When I first started this blog, I didn’t share it with anyone. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was trying to change my picky eating on my own or set any expectations. I especially didn’t want to disappoint either myself or my friends and family if my efforts didn’t work out.
Now, more than 7 years later, I’m thrilled that not only have I overcome my struggles with picky eating, but I’ve just finished writing a book designed to offer a new and fresh take on picky eating!
I’ve come to discover that the traditional approach for alleviating picky eating in toddlers doesn’t always work for children, teenagers or adults that have developed selective eating disorder. The advice being given to parents and families right now is missing a few pieces of the puzzle. A lot of additional information is available and there are strategies that can be used to vastly improve a picky eater’s diet and relationship with food—both when they are young and when they are older.
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As I was writing my book and starting to tell people about it, I have been shocked by the responses I’ve gotten. I keep finding people I’ve never met before in my life telling me how they currently are a picky eater or how they used to be a picky eater and understand what it is like—a friend of a friend who only orders plain chicken for dinner, the woman sitting next to me at a food summit, a coworker’s aunt, a fellow author, a professor’s daughter, a friend’s little brother, an acquaintance at the market, a close friend’s husband…the list goes on and on. My whole life I thought I was the only picky eater out there, and now I’m running into picky eaters of varying degrees constantly. We all have our food preferences and chances are we all know at least one friend or family member who is picky.
The truth is, this book also represents my own journey to understand the stigma around picky eating and offers a new look at the science and psychology of picky eating and the food world.
I’ve gone back and forth quite a bit on whether I was comfortable enough with my picky eating journey to put myself out there and tell my story. I’ve done everything I could for most of my life to hide my picky eating from people, to NOT talk about it, NOT make it a big deal, and pretend like I was “normal.”
I mean… of all the things in the world for me to write about, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be writing a book about food!
Yet, I wrote my book Picky Eater to let the whole world know how NOT normal I really am. There is no reason I couldn’t just move on with my life now that I can try anything and eat everything and pretend like I never was a picky eater in the first place.
The trouble is I kept coming back to the fact that I am so grateful and feel so lucky that I’m not a picky eater anymore and I can now eat anything! It’s changed my entire life. Now I truly understand what “life-changing” means, but man was I scared. I had no idea if I would ever be able to reach the people who might benefit from this book. But was I really going to let my fear of others knowing about my picky-eating past hold me back from potentially helping another picky eater just like me embrace healthy eating habits?
I sat down and meditated, prayed, talked with friends and family and asked for guidance. The answer: if there was even a small chance I could help one person, I had to try.
The information my mom was provided by pediatricians, psychologists and psychiatrists when I was younger was usually misinformed or not very helpful. My picky eating was not identified for what it was. It wasn’t just the conventional stage of fussy eating that toddlers go through, and so my phobia and anxiety grew worse as I got older instead of better. I can’t help but be frustrated that there weren’t more resources out there for me when I was a young girl as a picky eater or that there wasn’t more guidance for my parents from the various health professionals they talked with to help my mom and dad. What if something could have been done about it and my life could have changed twenty years earlier if we had only known what to do?
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In my book, I’ve tried to assemble core insights and information to provide a more holistic and nonjudgmental view of picky eating.
Picky Eater is for anyone who is trying to help a picky eater or has ever struggled with their relationship with food. Whether you are:
- a picky eater like I was who so badly wants to change, but doesn’t know how
- an amazing mother, father, or loved one of a picky eater, or
- a nutritionist, psychologist, or medical professional who is passionate about helping picky eaters and their loved ones.
I want picky eaters and their loved ones to have somewhere to go to learn and understand picky eating. I want picky eaters to have someone to go to for advice and be able to talk about it. I want parents to know how their relationship with food is affecting not only their own health, but the health of their children as well. I want parents to improve their own relationships with food and help their children grow up with healthy and happy relationships with food. I want people to know that how we think about food can have a huge impact on our lives and health. Most importantly, I want picky eaters to know they are not alone. It is possible to change and many things can be done to help them start trying new foods.
After going through it on my own, I’ve been extremely curious and have done extensive research to figure out if there was a way I could help others apply the same process I did by diving into these questions in my book:
- Why and how was I able to change?
- What are the common themes?
- What has worked for others?
- What good, helpful and proven advice is available?
- What made things worse?
- How does our attitude about food affect our health?
Over the next weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from my book, Picky Eater: 32 Insights, Lessons, and Guidelines when they Haven’t “Grown Out of It” in my blog. Picky Eater launches on February 22, 2019. If you’d like to be the first to get a copy, you can pre-order it on Amazon — here is the link: www.amazon.com/dp/B07NDQMB8M. If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email, connect with me on social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or add a comment below!