Can’t eat peanut butter? You may not like its taste or texture and that is why you cannot stand it in your meals. But you may also suffer from arachibutyrophobia, a phobic disorder related to eating that can cause you more than one problem. If you want to know more about arachibutyrophobia or fear of peanut butter, we will tell you everything in our dictionary of phobias .
What is arachibutyrophobia
Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter and, by extension, it can also reach the peanut or peanut itself. It is a food phobia like others that we have already seen in the style of lacanophobia or fear of vegetables . Although in this case it is not a staple in our daily diet , it can cause more than one problem.
This strange word comes from the Greek. We know the word “phobia” well and it refers to an irrational and excessive fear. It is also made up of “araxida”, which refers to peanuts and “butyro”, which is nothing other than butter. With this we can understand that it is a fear that the texture of this food could choke us .
Symptoms of arachibutyrophobia
What does a person with arachibutyrophobia feel? You don’t even have to have a slice of peanut butter bread in front of you to experience all the symptoms of anxiety . Just imagining that you have to eat it for some reason sets off all the alarms in your body.
It all begins with a concern, the typical one that one has when an imminent danger is assumed. And the anxiety mechanism is triggered, so functional in some cases and so excessive in the case of phobias. Agitation, shortness of breath, dizziness , tachycardia, paraesthesia and panic attack are some of the most common reactions when we talk about phobias.
Causes of arachibutyrophobia
But what can develop this fear of peanut butter? As always when we find a phobic disorder there are two main causes. On the one hand, there is the traumatic experience , an episode with a great negative emotional charge in which the protagonist was this food.
On the other hand, the cause of arachibutyrophobia can be found in a previous anxiety disorder . When anxiety overwhelms us, it can manifest itself in many ways and one of them is phobia. Fear, alertness and a feeling of danger in the face of the most unexpected stimulus and, in this case, of peanut butter.
The best treatment for arachibutyrophobia
It is tempting to think that peanut butter is not something we commonly come across at meals and that avoidance is easy. It is not a phobia that causes obvious limitations in the day to day and that is why some people decide not to treat their fear. After all, how many times do you put yourself in a situation where peanut butter is present?
But although arachibutyrophobia is not a limiting problem, it must be taken into account that many food phobias come from the hand of other eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia . And if that peanut butter phobia spreads to other foods, it can end up causing significant nutritional deficiencies.
Thus, the moment a phobia is detected, psychological help must be sought . Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective in the case of phobic disorders and is usually accompanied by gradual exposure therapy to gradually lose the fear of peanut butter.
