There’s not much research on the topic of picky eating—or even a precise definition of what makes someone “picky.” To fill in some of these blanks, the University of Pennsylvania study team asked roughly 500 people to complete questionnaires about their eating habits. What Makes a Picky Eater? Roughly 36% of the Penn study participants self-identified as picky eaters. Compared to the “I’ll eat anything!” types, the picky eaters were more likely to reject sour- or bitter-tasting foods, says study coauthor Hana Zickgraf. Picky eaters were also more likely to say “no” to foods that had touched other things on their plates. And they tended to dislike foods with varying textures or concealed ingredients—things like chunky sauces, stews, dumplings, or brownies containing nuts. (Along with taste, a food’s color and texture appears to play a role in a picky eater’s dislike of certain foods, Zickgraf says.) As you might guess, picky eaters are also a lot more likely than non-picky eaters to eat from a small range of foods, and to worry about not being able to eat when invited out for meals, Zickgraf says. What explains all these traits? “Picky eaters may have a more sensitive sense of taste,” Zickgraf explains. They may also have a stronger response to oral stimulation, or a super-touchy disgust reflex, her research suggests. MORE: 10 Eating Rules Almost All Nutritionists Agree On The Darker Side of Food Hang-Ups Compared to the non-choosy foodies, the average picky eater showed signs of mild depression. Picky eaters also tended to score higher on measures of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), the study data show. What do eating issues have to do with these mental health disorders? It’s tough to say at this point, Zickgraf says. Picky eaters are more distressed than non-picky eaters, which may be the result of their factiousness when it comes to food—and could also explain the uptick in their rates of mild depression. It’s also possible some OCD-related personality traits—such as “behavioral or cognitive rigidity”—bleed into a person’s diet habits, Zickgraf and her study colleagues write in the Appetite paper. At this point, it’s not clear whether those physiological disorders lead to picky eating, or vice versa. “This study is a first step,” Zickgraf says. Her team’s future research will explore the unanswered questions, and hopefully help picky eaters broaden their diet choices, she says. MORE: 9 Highly Effective Treatments For Mild Depression
