Food Phobias Are Not Due To The Fear Of Gaining Weight

How many types of phobias have you heard of? There are probably hundreds of them, although some are more common than others. There are phobias for dogs, for the dark and for heights, among others. You or someone close to you is or has probably been the victim of one of them. In any case, there are some lesser-known clinical fears that are quite inhibiting, and you may have never heard of them. Food phobias, for example.

Food phobias are a family of phobias that include everything from fear of trying new foods to fear of swallowing food to fear of eating certain types of food for fear of poisoning. Eating is a primary need, and failure to do so can have serious consequences.

What are the most common types of food phobias? Are they related to other eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa? What are the consequences? Here are some answers to these questions and more.

What exactly is a phobia?

It is a reaction of irrational fear of harmless or harmful stimuli that most people keep under control. Maybe because the person who is scared has the resources to confront it.

Phobic reactions are maladaptive and can affect people’s everyday lives. Thus, they require attention and subsequent treatment. Even more so when the phobia affects a basic physiological need such as food.

You may not know it, but phobias usually appear in childhood or adolescence and are usually learned. The direct experience with the phobic stimulus, deputy learning (by looking at others), is the most common way to acquire a phobia. For example, being nearly suffocated by a peanut may be enough to make you phobic about eating peanuts.

In the same way, it is the rather interesting Garcia effect, which is the fear of experiencing food poisoning. This effect explains why people systematically reject certain types of food (or similar flavors) that at one point made them sick.

It is a conditional aversion to taste when you experience food poisoning or when it leads to discomfort (even if it is only slightly). This is because your brain associates taste with unpleasant experiences.

There are many different types of phobias, but today’s article will focus on the food phobias already mentioned. What are they and how many types are there?

Getting into the topic of food phobias

This is a family of phobias related to various aspects of food. It can be the fear of trying new foods, the fear of swallowing them, the fear of food poisoning, or the fear of eating a particular food group. Like most phobias, food phobias are usually learned, as we mentioned above.

The main consequence is active avoidance of phobic stimulus. In fact, it can lead to excessive restriction and malnutrition.

Neophobia, the fear of unknown foods

This refers to the refusal to try new foods. It literally means “fear of trying unknown foods”. Neophobia is a frequent phenomenon in childhood, especially at the age of two or three. However, it tends to disappear after five years. Although it can continue into adulthood.

There is an evolutionary explanation for this phenomenon. One can say matneophobia is a defense mechanism. This is because unknown food was a risk back when people used to collect their own food, as it often led to poisoning and even subsequent death.

Thus, children aged two to three who reject new food are not picky. They mainly adapt to new flavors and textures they will eventually tolerate (with some exceptions).

Actually, there is a genetic predisposition for this type of phobia. Estimates suggest that 78% of cases of food phobia are genetic. In addition, learning plays a fundamental role. In other words, to a large extent, children learn by seeing their role models (parents and older siblings). So you expect them to repeat what they see at home. When their models refuse to taste a particular food, the little ones will repeat it because they think it is the right thing to do.

Phagophobia, the fear of swallowing food

This phobia is about the fear of swallowing food produced by a bad experience of suffocation when swallowing. Unlike neophobia, it can occur at any age.

It is logical to think that you will reject a given food if you have been suffocating from it, you will not go through it again. The problem is that this fear can become generalized and spread to other types of food. This will greatly limit the selection you can actually eat. For example, some people end up developing a phobia of all kinds of foods, even liquids.

For example, they start eating liquid or crushed foods for fear of swallowing solid foods. These people should start eating easily crumbly and chewable types of food. Then they turn to solid, from smaller to larger consistency.

Similarly , they can start by using thickeners to change the texture of the fluid to maintain proper hydration if the phobia is about drinking fluids. Then they can gradually reduce the proportion of thickener.

Cibophobia, fear of allergic reactions and poisoning

This type of phobia is more related to food safety in general. There is the fear of possible food poisoning or allergic reactions. These people check the condition of the food thoroughly before eating it, as well as the expiration dates.

This phobia is closely related to the Garcia effect we mentioned earlier. It is usually associated with having food poisoning or an allergic reaction after eating a certain type of food. However, the fear can spread to many other types of food from the same family, even if it started with a particular food.

Other food phobias

Mycophobia is the fear of eating mushrooms due to the possibility of poisoning. The strange thing about this phobia is that it is not limited to the consumption of mushrooms. It can actually become generalized and cause aversion and fear of the simple fact of seeing or touching one of these specimens.

Similarly, lacanophobia is the fear of vegetables, be it a particular vegetable or an entire family of them.

It is strongly associated with traumatic situations experienced in childhood, related to forced intake. For example, being forced to eat these types of foods despite being suffocated by them. Or maybe having had to eat the spinach from the previous dinner. It may also be related to having found something wrong in them.

Food phobias versus eating disorders

As you can see, food phobias can become generalized even when a certain type of food triggered them in the beginning. Furthermore , it can limit the diversity of foods people eat, and therefore the quality of their overall diet. Thus, it can later lead to an excessive weight loss.

Being underweight is a common symptom of some eating disorders such as anorexia. However, the weight loss in this condition is produced by a deliberate reduction in the amount and variety of food, as a way of controlling the weight, in this case.

This is the main difference. Food phobias focus on aspects that are closely related to the food itself. For example, the family it belongs to or incorrect preservation. In contrast, anorexia is about the pathological fear of gaining weight in combination with other mental disorders.

This is why it is important to explore what may be behind being underweight. That is, what kind of fear has led to such weight loss? This is because different disorders require different approaches.

Some observations on the treatment of food phobias

Intervention in anorexia begins with nutritional rehabilitation to ensure the patient’s biological stability. Thereafter, the therapist goes on to deal with a person’s cognitive level, their distorted perception of the body image and their overestimated belief in, among other things, body weight.

In the case of food phobias, it may be necessary to restore weight as a first step if the consequences are severe and have been present for a long time. However, the treatment of phobias must be more targeted to promote progressive contact with the phobic stimulus to try to control it.