[color=teal][b]I've encountered quite a few people who, like me, have an irrational fear of food and eating. This phobia is called sitophobia or sitiophobia (cibophobia is the fear of food itself), and can have a devastating impact on our health and social lives.
Therefore, I've created a Yahoo! Group on this very topic. I intend on creating a web page as well.
The group description is as follows:
"This group is for people who have a phobia of eating and food (sitophobia, sitiophobia, or cibophobia). Related phobias are: misophobia or mysophobia or verminophobia (fear of germs), nosophobia or nosemaphobia (fear of getting sick), emetophobia (fear of vomiting), anginophobia (fear of choking).
This phobia may have a physical (stomach problems, food allergies, etc.), or mental cause. The person may be afraid that the food is spoiled or poisoned, or that they will choke or vomit or have a painful reaction. Food phobics may not want to eat in public, may be on a very restricted diet and refuse to try new foods, may wash their hands incessantly before eating, and may obsess about expiration dates on food packaging.
Anorexia, bulimia, and other disorders based on fear of weight or body image issues, are not covered in this group."
The group site address is:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/foodfear/
Thank you and I hope you can join me in supporting each other and others with this uncommon, misunderstood phobia.[/color][/b]
