Picky eating is common among toddlers and preschoolers, but some adults also have very demanding taste buds.
This post may include affiliate links.
A few days ago, Reddit user MortgageTrick2436 made a post on the platform to air her frustration with her daughter-in-law.
She even went as far as to say that the woman has become "an embarrassment" at the table because of her extremely selective preferences and that it made her stop inviting her to family get-togethers.
However, the subsequent fallout is making the lady doubt her harsh actions, so she's wondering if she needs to apologize.
Picky eating in adults can cause a variety of health and social issues
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
And this woman got so fed up with her daughter-in-law that she even stopped inviting her to family dinners
Image crwdits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
Image source: MortgageTrick2436
Adult picky eaters, like the woman in the post, remain poorly understood
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
The estimates of picky eating in childhood vary widely, ranging from 5 percent to more than 25 percent, depending on the definition of selective eating, but according to psychologist and director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders, Nancy Zucker, Ph.D., there is no consensus on the prevalence in adults.
So the causes of long-term picky eating remain poorly understood, and it's difficult to tell why the Redditor's daughter-in-law and other people have it.
For some, a childhood dining scare from choking or vomiting may cause a lingering fear of one or more foods. "Food memories are very powerful memories," Dr. Zucker said, adding that social anxiety associated with picky eating seems to increase with age.
Other people may have a heightened sensitivity or even somewhat distorted perception of certain tastes and smells altogether.
Many adult picky eaters want to change their habits, but they find certain foods too unappealing to even put on a plate. In extreme cases, they may shun nearly all foods, a condition known as the avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID.
Sadly, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law dynamic is often difficult to navigate
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
We can't know for sure what pushed the daughter-in-law from the post to develop her eating habits. What we do know, however, is that female in-law relationships are hard. In fact, according to a study of hundreds of families over two decades, over 60 percent of women reported that they felt long-term unhappiness and stress because of them.
Dr. Terri Apter, a psychologist and senior tutor at Newnham College, Cambridge University, who carried out the research for her book What Do You Want From Me?, found that two-thirds of daughters-in-law believed that their husband's mother frequently exhibited jealous, maternal love towards their sons. A similar proportion of mothers-in-law complained of being excluded and isolated.
Dr. Apter says that the in-law problem is almost always between the two women. "As they struggle to achieve the same position in the family as primary woman, each tries to establish or protect her status, each feels threatened by the other," she explains.
"Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflict often emerges from an expectation that each is criticizing or undermining the other, but this mutual unease may have less to do with actual attitudes and far more to do with persistent female norms that few of us manage to shake off completely," she adds.
Hopefully, MortgageTrick2436 and her daughter-in-law will be able to sort everything out.
The woman provided more information on the conflict in the comments, many of which said she did nothing wrong
But some people believe that everyone involved could've handled things better
