I call these people PAMF’s. I’ll use it in a sentence. "listen here you PAMF, I’m hungry and I’d like to get my order in before the kitchen closes. If you don’t want “X” then pick it off your burger.
I don’t call them anything, as I generally decline to dine with such people if I have the option. Don’t care if it is due to “supertasting” or autism or upbringing or what. I don’t have a problem eating a wide range of foods, some strongly flavored or seasoned, and I prefer to share my meals with like people.
The IBS that made my teens and twenties miserable went away in my thirties. As my fear of inducing gastro-intestinal distress subsided, my appetite for trying new foods increased. I’m far more adventurous in my diet now.
Shaming never made me try new foods. It did add another layer of misery to living with IBS.
Did you find a solution in diet or medication, or was it unexplained?
I care because it’s made cooking for my spouse of over two decades almost damn nigh impossible. And considering he has health issues out the wazoo, that eating a normal range of good and healthy foods would help (versus his insanely childish choices), it does drive me batty that he won’t even try to widen his repertoire even the tiniest bit. Which usually in part (amongst his many other contributing problems), winds his finicky, picky ass back up in the hospital. But maybe that’s just me.
Electophage.
I didn’t realize that my first husband faked his death and got remarried. 
I was a very picky eater as a child. That changed when I became an adult and no longer had to eat my mother’s and grandmother’s terrible cooking. Mom’s was better than grandmother’s, to be sure, but neither of them ever cooked a vegetable that wasn’t boiled to within an inch of its life. I lived in the dorms the first few years of college, and was exposed to a wide variety of foods I had never tried, and found I liked some of them.
To the op - “junkarian” seems to fit for what you are describing - the fried chicken strips with french Fries and no veggies or fruits restricted diet.
Kinda surprised for that “cite” is being called for here, but there is indeed a strong association between frequent consumption of that sort of fast food and both obesity and diabetes risk and all of the costs that go with those diagnoses.
The impact of diet in broader terms on health is HUGE not small.
Not sure how many cites you require but they are myriad. For, shall we say, a taste, just the impact of fiber in food on just cardiovascular disease, the relative risk is 45% of fatal MI highest to lowest quintile. Overall mortality? For the Mediterranean diet as an archetype of healthy dietary habits a 23% decrease risk over ten years and when combined with other lifestyle habits such as exercise, not smoking, and alcohol use kept to moderate levels, a greater than 50% reduction in ten year mortality.
Okay, one more.
Eating a wide variety of healthy foods (as opposed to a picky toddleresque diet restricted to a few junky choices, low in fiber rich foods like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains) is of major impact to the health of the population as a whole and to costs that the rest of us pay.
I’m am not saying that such means it is appropriate for any of us to make comments or attempt to shame our peers into changed eating habits. IRL I won’t offer an opinion unless asked and I have a hard enough time soft selling my daughter into eating more variety (very frustrating). But claiming that “[s]tudies on the health impact of diet routinely find very small effects” is simply making a mistaken statement. These sorts of decreases in 10 year mortality risk and risk of dementia are anything but small.
To those defending picky eaters in this thread, I will just say this:
I take no interest in what others are eating, until the point at which they start saying “yuck” and turning their nose up at what I’m eating.
If they can say they find what I’m eating distasteful, then I can say I find their attitude distasteful.
I am exactly this. And people who care what I eat can piss off.
I have been underweight for most of my life, and only recently have I moved to the upper end of the BMI, for whatever that’s worth, but, were they to look at me, at no time would anyone say I was overweight.
I am not healthy, but I am also not unhealthy. I will probably outlive all my siblings, if it comes down to diet, all of whom eat regular food like most people.
As a supertaster (I am so glad that there is an explanation for how I’ve been my whole life) I don’t like bitter things, or overly sweet things. The overwhelming majority of foods I eat are savoury, though that’s not saying much, it’s about ten different kinds of things I regularly cycle through.
I have had to deal with people commenting on what I eat, desperately trying to make me eat stuff, or feeding me without my asking. People don’t understand when I say I don’t want to eat the stuff they like. It confuses them, and their heads tilt like a puppy, so they just keep trying to feed me. It’s damned annoying.
Here’s what it comes down to: I don’t give a flying dickwhistle what you eat, in return please do me the courtesy of not caring what I eat.
Personally, I don’t care if people are picky. I am not picky myself, but I do tend to eat the same foods every day (just out of habit)–and people’s comments can piss me off sometimes. So I can sympathize, to a certain degree.
But surely picker eaters understand why pickiness isn’t conducive for most socialize activities, right? Food is a big part of socializing. People like knowing that you’ll at least take a bite of their kitchen creations or eat at a restaurant of their choosing. Being able to eat foods you don’t think you’ll like communicates to others that you’re down for whatever, and this is a good sign. This is why people care so much. Maybe food shouldn’t be the centerpiece of social time, but it is what it is.
It is good to know that pickiness can be outgrown. I am always worried that threads like this cause picky eaters to just dig in their heels. But I guess there’s hope that it could encourage someone to be more flexible.
Well, yeah, people doing that are just rude.
I rudely look longingly at the spicy lamb stew at the local Indian place when I can’t have it. It’s REALLY good.
And then I eat some raita and chicken tikka masala and plain rice and naan.
Hah… That’s not bad. My MIL supposedly has food sensitivities that give her migraines, and her trigger foods are pretty much EVERYTHING on the face of the earth that give food flavor(Onions, garlic, any allium. Mushrooms. Chilies/peppers. Parmesan-type cheeses, etc…). Then on top of that she has stuff she just doesn’t like.
So when we go out to eat, she’ll pick the blandest thing, and then put the poor waiter through the wringer about exactly what’s in it. She doesn’t try to be a PITA, but it always seems a bit demanding when we’re in a place where the entrees cost under $10.
I will question the server to find something low-salt. It’s not optional. I can either find something low-salt on the menu, or stay home, and my friends ask me to go out with them.
Salt is often hidden in just about everything on the menu. It’s a royal pain. So far my friends haven’t indicated that they don’t want to eat with me, though.
Social is a two-way street. When I go out to lunch with the guys at work, all of us have places we don’t like. For me it might be food choices at a couple places. Another guy has had bad service experiences and won’t go back to some restaurants. A couple co-workers are Muslim, so we don’t want to go to places that are all pork and bacon.
But rarely do we have everyone going. Someone’s working nights or from home that day, or has a meeting scheduled at noon or something. It all actually works out when everyone is reasonable about it.
The word you are looking for is gastrodork.
Which is the major sucky part about commercial foods - you can have high fat, high sugar or high sodium [well, actually pick 2 of 3] when you go out to eat to most normal places. sigh One main reason I prefer roaming pot lucks or having people visit me for a meal as entertaining instead of going out. It is way easier to deal with multiple dietary needs when you can directly control the food. I can generally find workaround for dietary limitations if I know about them. [I just found an interesting mention online for low sodium ‘bacon’ by processing raw pork belly without the brining that I want to play with.]
I wouldn’t care about picky eaters in that sort of situation, where who is going and where we’re going is very fluid - and having a couple of places you don’t like or not wanting to go to a place where the menu is predominantly one type of food don’t actually strike me as picky. Few people like everything, and even those that do don’t necessarily like every restaurant.
The pickiness that’s not conducive to socializing is a different sort. It’s like the guy I know who goes on group trips, but doesn’t want to eat anything but fast food. I don’t mean he wants to eat burgers and chicken fingers - most of the places we eat will have one of those on the menu. I mean he wants a McDonald’s or Wendy’s burger. He’ll go to other places, so it’s really not a problem with him, but other people can be very demanding. Like anotherother guy who doesn’t eat any fruits or vegetables - and who according to his wife once walked out of a restaurant because someone else in the group didn’t comply with his demands and got the oranges at a Chinese restaurant. ( and actually gets mad if she buys and eats fruit at home).
I should be insulted by this thread but we’ve been through this so many times I’m pretty much over it now. I can even find the humor in the OP; some of the more sanctimonious responses, not so much. I agree that it’s incredibly rude to wrinkle one’s nose and express disgust for what someone else is eating. It’s a bummer when every outing has to center around one person’s ultra pickiness. But of neither of those things come into play, why the hell does anyone care what another adult eats or does not eat? Sure, if you’re a “foodie” then experimenting and tasting different things is your passion and it makes sense that you wouldn’t enjoy the company of someone who does not share that interest; fair enough. But what burns my (unbuttered, goddammit) toast is people that feel they’re in a position to equate my tastes with childishness. I’m not a chicken strips only type of person, but there are some basic things that I WILL NOT EAT that can be challenging to avoid, like cheese. I don’t like the smell, look or texture of it. God forbid one should order a sandwich without it. I’m not a big fan of seafood. I’ll eat some shrimp, crab or lobster but I don’t really want it as a whole meal and I really really would prefer not to be surrounded by the stench of it. If you really want to go there, I will find something to eat and I promise I won’t wrinkle my nose. But don’t fucking condemn me because I don’t want to taste one of your oysters. If you can’t possibly enjoy your dining experience if I’m not eating the same thing as you, well that just your too bad.