"phobia" news and stories

Remember when we heard about the woman on the Maury Povich show that had a fear of pickles so intense that it was causing harm to her personal and professional relationships? Meet 29-year-old Dave Nunley, from Wyton in the UK. Nunley is not only afraid of pickles, but of every other food product out there - with the exception of cheddar cheese. He eats about 225 pounds of cheddar cheese, preferably grated, every year and has never eaten a hot meal in his entire life. On the rare occasions when he is able to tolerate other food, he will eat a packet of potato chips or some Ready Brek breakfast cereal. Nunley says that his food phobia is so intense that his "throat closes up, making him feel sick" when he even considers eating things other than cheese.

Doctors say that the cheese is keeping him alive, although it is not the healthiest diet you could subscribe to, as he would quite likely be starving to death if he didn't eat it. He has tried "hypnotherapy, acupuncture and even taken part in a BBC show about people with eating disorders" in attempts to cure the problem that has plagued him since childhood.

It could be worse, though. He could have settled on processed "cheese foods," like Velveeta, instead of mild cheddar.

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A woman in the UK who claims to have "been terrified of vegetables for more than 40 years" is now saying that she is on the path to curing her fear. The fear, known as lachanophobia, had been with 61-year old Krissie Palmer-Howarth since she was just 17. Since its onset, she says that she has not been capable of smelling vegetables or even speaking their names aloud without feeling sick. After a session of hypnotherapy, she can now stand near them without incident.

This treatment could be applied to others with food phobias, or even to picky eaters. Children aren't eating their broccoli? Stop by the hypnotherapy clinic on the way home from school.

And perhaps a similar treatment could help the poor people we saw earlier this year, whose fear of mustard and pickles was ruining their lives. Maury would probably air it as a followup episode, though it's hard to imagine more captivating TV than the original.

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Back in March, Andrew wrote a post about a woman who was terrified of peas to the point where she couldn't even be in the same aisle with them when shopping. I assumed that that was a one-off incident and that an actual fear of a food product wasn't keeping many people awake at night. While I can't actually speak to what they do with their nights, there are more food-phobes out there and they are spending their days on national TV. I saw a link to this video while reading the Amateur Gourmet. The episode of Maury is titled "My Fear of Mustard and Pickles Is Ruining My Life."

The title just about says it all, doesn't it? Watch the clip above and you can see the girl (a waitress) with the pickle phobia visit a pickle factory before they attempt to cure her. You might want to turn the sound on your speakers down, too, as there is a fair bit of screaming involved.

Tiz true. That humble little green vegetable, the defenseless legume holds little fear for most (unless it's mushy peas, which is little more than the devil's snot) but there is a woman in England who has a phobia. A pea phobia.

Louise Arnold, 35, of Bishops Cleeve, near Cheltenham in the UK is so terrified of the small green ones that seeing them on a plate has made her run from restaurants, and she cannot go near the frozen food aisle when out shopping. She claims to go green just at the sight of them.

Hypnotherapy and acupuncture will be her fate when she appears on TV as part of her attempts to cure her fear of peas. The ITV show Scared To Death - Phobia Britain will be shown in the summer and will include a man who is scared of cobwebs and a woman petrified of canoes. Stop laughing at the back there!

[Image from Seed Biology Place]

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