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Home / Lifestyle

Food phobic mum afraid of vegetables is cured by hypnosis

Daily Mail
10 Dec, 2016 06:30 PM4 mins to read

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A UK mum claims she only ate yellow, white and brown food, including potato smiley faces. Photo / Getty Images

A UK mum claims she only ate yellow, white and brown food, including potato smiley faces. Photo / Getty Images

A young mother who would only eat 10 different types of food - and wore rubber gloves to prepare her son's dinners - claims she had to be hypnotised in order to get over her fear of vegetables.

Victoria Reynolds, 22, of St Austell, Cornwall, hit 19 stone after existing on a diet of just yellow, white and brown food, according to the Daily Mail.

From the age of three, she only ate potato smiley faces, chips, bread, chicken nuggets, sausages, plain rice, plain pasta, chocolate, sweets and crackers with butter.

Even when she fell pregnant underage, at 14, she refused to vary her diet.

When she became a mother, she prepared her son Chase's meals wearing marigolds and experienced anxiety attacks if she sat next to someone eating a proper meal.

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She has now added these to her diet and has even started eating stew.

"It's amazing," she said. "For years, I would only eat around 10 food types.

"The thought of tucking into a sprout made me vomit. I couldn't imagine anything worse.

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"Vegetables literally made me gag."

Victoria stopped eating properly as a toddler, around the time she left nursery.

Her daily diet became very limited.

For breakfast she would only have dry cereal, pancakes or children's yoghurts with no bits in.

She'd skip lunch, drinking water throughout the day, and would have chips or smiley potato faces for dinner.

Aged around 13, she had a breakthrough and ate pizza.

When she fell pregnant as a schoolgirl, she was very sick and was only able to attend a week of school, completing her work at home.

Chase was born weighing nearly 10lbs at Royal Cornwall Hospital, in Treliske, in July 2009, after a prolonged labour, which Victoria said 'didn't hurt'.

That September, she was back in school, popping out of lessons to breastfeed Chase.

He was in a nursery near her school, so she could see him easily.

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She breastfed her son until he was six months old but when she started weaning him, her food phobia became a real problem.

"The smell and look of the mushed up fruit or vegetables made me petrified,' she says.

"While I did manage to go full term, both myself and my son were very poorly for the weeks that followed.

"I felt guilty and knew I needed to change, but even looking at 'different' food still terrified me'.

"When my son was weaning, the situation got even worse.

"I gave him healthy vegetables, but if I got anything on my hands I'd freak out. Even cleaning food off his high chair and tray would make me shiver and gag.

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"Luckily, I was living with my parents who did a lot of the feeding for me."

Aged 17, Victoria moved out and tried to cook for herself, but struggled.

She always had to wear gloves to cope with preparing food for her son, but even then she found it stressful and dreaded meal-times.

"I've always felt like the worst mum ever," she admitted. "Although I always gave him healthy food, I would often be anxious about it and I would be eating junk food, so I felt like a terrible role model."

It was in 2015 Victoria decided to approach Felix Econamakis, a food phobia expert.

After having just one £300 (NZ$500) session, Victoria said the expert's methods - which she described as 'like hypnosis'- worked.

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"Since my session with Felix I'm so much happier,' she says. 'I try all foods now, even if I don't always love them at first.

"I no longer gag or feel sick at the sight of new foods and I can clean up after my son and prepare his food without the issues. It has transformed my life.

"I am trying new foods all of the time. I have recently tried carrot, broccoli, apples and oranges which may seem like a small feat to most people, but for me that was like jumping over a humongous hurdle.

"This Christmas I am looking forward to trying a full Christmas dinner, including the chestnut stuffing that my dad, Steven Reynolds, 52, makes every year.

"I am looking forward to a healthy 2017."

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