We can all be a bit picky when it comes to food - for me, I can't stand peppers - but when push comes to shove, you complaining your carrots touching your mash potatoes won't kill you. If you can't eat something for health reasons, forget about your First World problems and just eat your food!
You'd think it would be the case for someone who loves sausage rolls. From the age of two, Elliott Jones could only stomach sausage rolls for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A fussy eater for years, Elliot - who is now 17 - would be sick at the sight of fruit or vegetables.
After watching him eat over 6,000 sausage rolls, Elliott’s mother, Joy Streatfield, 41, knew she needed to help her son lead a healthy and varied diet. "He used to eat brilliantly as a baby, but as soon as he reached two years old he started to gag every time I gave him food. Meal time just became an anxiety all round, and our food shop would just constantly be filled with sausage rolls, and it just got worse over the years."
"Elliott was such a fussy eater that sausage rolls were one of the only things that he would eat, and it was either him eating those or not eating at all, so he ate them for years. It restricted his social life in many ways growing up because he couldn’t go out for meals as hardly anywhere sells plain sausage rolls. He also considered fries, plain sausages and salmon paste sandwiches as his safe foods - but that was it."
There was only one thing left of course: hypnotherapy.
"I was only eating foods I’d had as a child, but I didn’t feel bored of them because they were all I knew," revealed Elliott. "I still enjoyed sausage rolls, despite having them for over 15 years, but sometimes I would see things that I wish I could try but I’d always feel sick before I could." Elliott underwent a two-hour hypnotherapy session, which worked, and has meant he has been able to enjoy his first summer ice cream alongside a selection of other foods.
"It feels great to be able to see something that looks good and try it instead of wishing I could," Elliot said.
"The feeling of being hypnotized just felt like a very relaxing, light sleep and it’s made trying new foods completely natural to me," he continues. Joy says: "Now he’s able to eat all sorts of food and, although he still eats sausage rolls, they are no longer his only favourite. And it’s great that he can enjoy the summer now too - as he loves BBQ food such as burgers and ice cream!"
David Kilmurry is the hypnotherapist that opened him up to attempting new food. He is a cognitive behavioral hypnotherapist and diagnosed Elliot with neophobia, which translates as "fear of the new": he had stuck with a daily "safe diet" of sausage rolls- and not a lot else.
Kilmurry says: "during the clinical hypnotism I help to relax the gag reflex, and post-hypnotic suggestions to be inquisitive about new foods rather than scared of them. Straight after the hypnotism, Elliott immediately tucked into loads of new fresh healthy foods."
"Within a fortnight of the sessions Elliott had been shopping on his own, eaten hot food, roast dinners and vegetables - he changed overnight and we are all really pleased with his development with just the one session." This guy sure does toot his own horn, but I could do with a session to help me put down that extra pizza slice.
