Man Pushing Away Food Meat Aversion In Adults Cover

Meat aversion in adulthood: How to overcome it

Is there something wrong with me? Why is it everyone else seems to like meat, they love steaks and burgers, only I don’t. The thought of eating meat makes me want to retch. I think I must be a picky eater.  I never used to be like this so why do I have this sudden meat aversion in adulthood? and How do I overcome it?

What is food aversion?

A food aversion is a strong dislike or disinclination to something. The trigger provokes a strong reaction. It is not like being against a food preference, this is a strong dislike. This aversion provokes a strong disgust. It creates an avoidance of food, one that you can’t imagine going near, let alone, smelling or touching.

Further Reading

The Three types of ARFID in Adults

What causes meat aversion?

A meat aversion in adulthood mostly starts in childhood. Quite often it is linked to genetics, sensory processing or neurodiverse conditions such as Autism. In adults, mental health conditions like depression can play a part.

Woman With A Meat Aversion

What can cause a sudden aversion to food in Adulthood?

Many reasons can cause a food aversion in adulthood. Some of them are:

Hormonal changes that change our tastes and senses.

As women progress through their cycles hormonal changes, especially estrogen and progesterone fluctuate. It is made more complex by the endocrine and paracrine hormones binding to receptor sites on taste cells and alter our perception of taste.

Leptin is a hormone that is known to reduce and change your appetite.

Pregnancy

HcG, (Human Chorionic gonadotropin) is a hormone produced by pregnancy. It can cause food aversion, appetite changes and nausea.

Gastrointestinal issues

We have many gut hormones and GI issues that are going to affect our tastes. Ageing, changes in food, changes in hormonal receptors, changes in gut biodiversity are all going to affect our feelings around familiar foods and our food intake.

Studies have been done on whether GI issues affect your ARFID disorder. Because many people with GI issues can alter their diets, though those with ARFID will find that hard to do so.

People who have had bariatric surgery notice changes to taste in food, most notably heightened sensitivity to sweet food, sour food and fast food. Some people notice meat feels too heavy in their stomach following surgery.

Neurodiversity

Some people with neurodiversity can have sensory sensitivities to tastes, smells and textures. For instance, people with ADHD are acutely aware of certain foods that they have an aversion to because of taste, texture and smell. This can cause a further anxiety around food.

People with ADHD struggle with the interoceptive sense. Which is the body’s ability to interpret signals around hunger, thirst and pain for instance. This can cause a person to overeat, undereat and develop a certain mindset about food, which can lead to selective eating.

People with autism spectrum disorder may also experience sensory issues, or have strict rules around food, such as they do not eat a wide variety of foods and may not like food touching one another.

Traumatic events or event

Trauma is prevalent in those with Eating Disorders, such as Binge Eating Disorder, or bulimia nervosa. This is because food can be a coping strategy, much like alcohol or drugs. Not many studies have been done on ARFID (Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder)  and trauma. We don’t know if trauma contributes to or causes ARFID. One study found that those who identified as having picky eating, a high percentage also had ARFID.

A mental health condition

Mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety can experience a loss of appetite. Depression can exacerbate gastrointestinal sensitivities issues which may also play a part in our tastes and sensitivities changing towards food.

A diagnosed eating disorder such as ARFID.

ARFID (Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) is classed as an eating disorder). It is characterised as avoidance of types of foods. A type of food people with ARFID would avoid would be certain vegetables, and, or meat. It is the texture and smell that is offputting. As we grow older the food avoidance can change, so hence you get the meat aversion in adulthood. The food avoidance is not due to cultural factors, nor to any medical conditions or allergic reactions.

With ARFID (Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) there is a genuine fear of food. They are not just being picky eating it is more than that. People will have their favorite foods, this is not just a preference, these types of foods feel safe. They know they have a limited diet but at least they can eat and feel relaxed.

A lack of food, food allergies, weight loss or the nature of diet culture play no part in ARFID. It has a complex nature.

ARFID is very different and should not be confused with Anorexia Nervosa. People with anorexia nervosa have a distorted self-image and use food as a way to control that image. Whereas people with ARFID would genuinely love to be able to eat well-balanced diet including all of the entire food groups, only there is such a strong aversion, it is difficult to overcome.

If you have ARFID, (Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) it is recommended that you see an eating disorder specialist to help you.

Further Reading

How to treat ARFID in adults

Meat Aversion In Adults Woman

How does a meat aversion affect my body?

As with any type of disordered eating, if you are not eating a well-balanced diet, you may well be experiencing nutritional deficiencies.

Meat provides us with protein, B12, Iron, Zinc, Selenium, long chain Omega 3 fatty acids. You can get some of these nutrients from a plant source, however, meat might provide you with a better quality nutrient.

It is recommended that you eat lean meat.

Fish are sometimes an alternative and you can find the vitamins and minerals you need from some plants.

Meat aversions in humans

Here’s the science bit. I think when we understand the theory behind what is happening and why, it can help us to know that none of this is our fault. We have not done anything to ourselves, we have not caused this. Knowing this can lighten the mental load that we may be carrying around about this.

Classical Conditioning and Food Aversion

Understanding the psychology behind food aversion can help us to understand how our brains have worked and more importantly why they have worked in that way.

Classical conditioning is the term used to describe when a behaviour is learnt through association.

At the beginning, you have a stimulus that has produced a behaviour. Because it is not learnt at this stage, this behaviour is known as an unconditioned response.

When this happens enough times, the response goes into the unconscious so that means we don’t even have to think about it, it becomes an automatic reaction.

To give an example. You may see a chicken leg and it may produce a nauseous feeling. Your brain remembers this nauseous feeling and makes the connection between that chicken leg and nausea. The next time you see a chicken leg, you instantly get a nauseous feeling. It might be the same or you notice it and may feel worse. The next time you only have to think about a chicken leg and you get that same nauseous feeling.

This happens so often that you may not remember the first time you had a response, all you know is that a chicken leg makes you feel nauseous and you do not know why.

However the classical conditioning explanation is not going to be the cause of the ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) or meat aversion. It could be a contributing factor as to why your meat aversion remains.

Steps to overcoming Meat aversion

The first question is do you want to? and then why? Have you been given healthcare advice to eat meat? Do you want to eat it to improve your physical health?

When do food aversions go away?

Most of the time a meat aversion in adulthood is not going to go away by itself. Though there are steps you can take to help you to overcome it and to desensitise to it.

Behavioural therapy

Behavioral therapy is a set of techniques and approaches that therapists use to change behaviour. A common use of behavioural therapy is dog training.

When training a dog to change behaviour, the owner might use aversion techniques, such as introducing a horrible stimulus when the owner wants to stop a behaviour. Like a high screech noise when jumping up on people. The dog soon associates the horrible noise with jumping up, it does not like the noise so soon it stops the behaviour.

An old method of behavioural change for humans was introducing mild electric shocks with unwanted behaviour. We don’t want to give ourselves electric shocks each time we have a negative reaction to meat, so we have to use different behavioural therapy methods.

Reinforcing positive behaviour

With dog training, when a dog does what you want, you often see dog owners giving their dogs little treats. This is called introducing a positive stimulus. The brain learns ahha every time I do this, I get a treat. It feels good so the brain keeps producing that behaviour for us. This is known as positive reinforcement.

To give an example of how you can use it.

  1. Notice when you have a positive response to food. So it might be you see a cake and get excited.
  2. Notice the excited response.
  3. To start the classical conditioning, start pairing a cake with an item you don’t like, i.e. a chicken leg. This is going to take quite a few goes, but when you pair the items, just keep focusing on the cake but you know the chicken leg is there in the background.
  4. Keep focussing on your positive feelings about the cake.
  5. Now introduce a positive reward with every positive behaviour. I don’t mean more food, I mean telling yourself well done. Giving yourself a tick on a chart, a sticker, or money in a pot. A small reward that feels good.
  6. This is training, so it has to be worked at for as long as it takes. Be patient and keep giving yourself the small reward for every positive behaviour.

Desensitisation Therapy

Desensitisation therapy is where we gradually introduce an object or a thing we do not like and slowly manage our negative responses and anxieties at each stage. It is used for extreme aversions  and can be used to help symptoms of food aversion.

  1. Think of aversive food items you would like to work on and pick one to begin with.
  2. Take time to mentally picture that food. Notice your response.
  3. Practise being calm and relaxed and mentally introduce that food item. At this stage keep picturing it until you notice a calm response.
  4. Keep repeating these steps in stages.
  5. Stage 2 might be you stop in front of the item in a supermarket and bring in a calm and relaxed response.
  6. Stage 3 might be you buy the item, but it stays in the pack in the fridge.
  7. You need to decide the stages for you because each person is different. At each stage keep working on being calm and relaxed and don’t move forwards until you are happy with your response.

This can be challenging to do on our own because we have a tendency to make things as easy as possible for us. Therefore it is recommended that you work with mental health professionals who have experience dealing with ARFID (Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder)

Woman With Arfid And Meat Aversion

Tips for overcoming meat aversion

Be patient.

Overcoming food and meat aversion in adulthood can take time. It all depends on how long you have had it for and how deeply ingrained the behaviour is. But being harsh with ourselves, telling ourselves off, forcing ourselves to do something different is not always going to work, even if we do have the best intentions.

Change how you are with yourself. If it was a friend who was going through what you are going through, you would be understanding and supportive. So how can you bring more of that to yourself? When we feel understood and supported, it gives us the confidence to try new things and overcome challenges.

Practicing mindfulness and mindful eating

When we don’t know, we don’t know. In other words you will be responding automatically and not knowing why.

Mindfulness is the practise of being aware. Being aware and paying attention to your behaviours, and why you are doing your behaviours. Noticing the thoughts and feelings that are causing your behaviours.

Being curious.

This goes with practising mindfulness. Only we can tend to get harsh with ourselves and beat ourselves up. If we adopt a curious attitude instead, it opens up the door for us to see other perspectives.

By being curious we can think of:

When did your meat aversion in adulthood first start? Or did it start as a child? If so, when?

What was happening when it first started?

Use the desensitization process

As described above. This will all take time. It takes time to acclimatise to new environments and that is what you are doing. You are creating a new environment for yourself by introducing meat slowly. Go easy on yourself. If you have a relapse then take off from where you are.

Therapy for eating disorders

How to find a therapist for eating disorders

There may be underlying causes other than biological and neurodiversity that are causing your meat aversion in adulthood. If you have done all you can for yourself and it is difficult to change, yet you want to change. It is recommended that you seek out a specialist eating disorder therapist.

The therapist will not only help you to address the behavioral issues but also the underlying contributing factors. This can have a massive positive effect on your day-to-day life. People report being able to eat a wider range of foods and they have a better relationship with food. Life is controlled by you, not by food anymore.

Further Reading

Hypnotherapy for ARFID

Further Support

BEAT Eating Disorders

ARFID Awareness UK

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About Vanessa McLennan

Vanessa is an emotional eating expert with a passion for natural health, superfoods and psychology. She helps women from all over the world to successfully lose weight by escaping the diet cycle and end their emotional eating patterns. She holds a diploma in Hypnotherapy as well as qualifications in EMDR, EFT, Emotional Eating, IBS therapist. Check out her free guide to help you break free of the diet cycle www.vanessamclennan.com/lp/break-free