Eating-related phobic disorders are especially dangerous as their consequences extend to health as well. This is the case of food neophobia or the fear of trying new foods , a disorder that is very common in childhood but can reach adulthood if it is not treated in time. We tell you all about food neophobia in our dictionary of phobias .
What is food neophobia
Food neophobia is the fear of trying new foods. Hence, it is a disorder that originates in childhood when the child begins to discover all the possibilities of feeding. Based on its texture, its smell, its color or its taste, the child discards foods that it considers potentially dangerous .
But it is an unfounded fear, as is the case with all phobic disorders. Food neophobia is considered normal behavior at that age when children start with a varied diet. It is the role of parents to detect the limits between a rejection of the functional novelty and another pathological one. So pay attention.
Causes and consequences of food neophobia
Discarding food for whatever reason is always a bad investment in health. As we have already seen in the case of lacanophobia or fear of vegetables , restricting food poses an obvious risk of malnutrition and these phobias are also often associated with other types of disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Cause or consequence?
In food neophobia, its consequences matter more than its causes . Surely you will meet an adult with a very limited diet , one of those people who do not like anything and who are not friends with culinary innovations. It may be a capricious person, it is true, but it may also have a disorder such as neophobia.
Avoiding eating a large amount of food for fear that it is dangerous also leads to social isolation. That person with neophobia is very aware of their limitations and surely does not understand their own fear, since it is an irrational fear. But he thinks he can’t help it.
Symptoms of food neophobia
The fact that they put a new food on your plate or that you have already decided throughout your life to exclude it from your diet due to neophobia leads to suffering all the anxiety symptoms that we know so well. Feeling of suffocation, dizziness, vomiting, tachycardia … And that feeling of unreality that often leads to panic attack.
The behavior of a person suffering from food neophobia or any other phobia is to avoid. Avoid having these symptoms, avoid being in situations that you consider dangerous, avoid eating certain foods , avoid attending events in which you have to face those products that cause you dread. In the end, self-esteem goes to the bottom of the earth and you are left with that unsettling feeling that something is seriously wrong.
How is food neophobia treated?
It may be that in the case of children it is the parents themselves who can act to stop this incipient neophobia, but it never hurts to go to a professional . It is important to understand that if a child rejects a food, it is not advisable to force him to eat it because he will associate it throughout his life with a great negative emotional charge.
There are other strategies for her to accept it and eat it willingly. Hence the importance of going to a psychologist . In both children and adults, cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective to overcome a phobia.
And in this case of food neophobia, repeated exposure to the feared food is very helpful to create what is known as a habituation phenomenon. If you put that feared food on the table every day, without forcing it to be eaten, without anger and naturally, the child will get used to having that food on the plate and the feeling of danger will be reduced.