Are you a member of the fussy eater tribe or are your food aversions hiding something more sinister? Andrea Wren investigates our relationship with food

Do you have a friend who faints at the mere idea of dressing on her salad, or one who scrapes the gooey bits of cheese off her pizza? Maybe the fussy eater you know is a grandparent who won't touch any of that 'funny foreign food', or a health-obsessed white-carb watcher who can't bear to chew on non-organic?

We all probably know people who are picky about what they eat. The Americans have excelled at this for a long time, with their skinny, soya lattes and carb-reduced snack bars, and the UK has quickly followed suit.

Health and wellbeing coach for The Wellworks, Barbara Louvrou, says: 'There are many people, young and old, who do not eat certain foods, but their reasons why can be very different. Faddy eating usually begins in childhood and adolescence, and can be a normal part of growing up, but is something we generally grow out of.'

But when does fussy become an issue, or develop into a food phobia (an irrational fear of certain foods)?

It often begins when children are forced to finish what's on their plate, sometimes to the point of vomiting, or they relate a food to a bad experience. Louisa Bainbridge has had a thing about eggs from being a baby, and although she cannot pinpoint exactly how it occurred, she has avoided them for much of her life.

Now, aged 45, Louisa can eat eggs but only if she has cooked them herself, and they are 'free-range, organic, from a certified flock and stamped as salmonella-free!'

She says: 'My borderline phobia is about the smell and the texture, or it was when I was younger. Now it's as much about health fears. I can't stand the smell of cooked eggs at all, unless I've done the cooking. I often feel nauseous if I can see or smell cooked eggs. Sometimes I'll have to get out for fresh air.'

Nutritional therapist Barbara Powell, who is based at the National Nutrition Clinic, says: 'Louisa's case is verging on phobic because while she is obviously able to eat and process eggs in her digestive system, she won't allow other people to cook eggs for her. It isn't an aversion, which would happen when someone reacts badly to a food because their body can't process it.'

In another case, that of Adeline Chapman, her food fear is far more severe and can have her running, hand over her mouth, from a house in which fried mushrooms are being cooked. Adeline thinks her severe revulsion of these fungi is akin to a phobia.

She says: 'I would say I hated everything about mushrooms; their shape, their texture to touch, their look and whether they are raw or in the ground. Cooked mushrooms send shivers down my spine and the smell of them frying will have me leaving a house or wretching if I can't get out quick enough. My absolute horror is mushroom soup or risotto, and I am positively frightened of funny looking mushrooms like shitake.'

But while Adeline doesn't have any other real dislikes of other foods, Jane Shipley, 28, admits her food fussiness has been widespread since her younger years, often causing her problems. She explains: 'When I eat with other people and I can't have what they have it can be embarrassing, such as if I'm at a party where everyone is having fish and I am the only person not to touch my plate. It also has often been a real issue when travelling abroad.'

Jane won't eat most seafood, eggs, cheese, kiwi fruit, organ meat, lychees, beetroot, or 'mushrooms that look unusual'. It seems mushrooms are popular on the list of foods to hate. 'When I see mushrooms, even though I know I really like the taste of mushrooms in a sauce or chopped up into small pieces, I find it hard to eat them, and would find it hard to wash and chop them myself,' she adds.

But apart from causing your dinner host a huge hassle over menu-planning, being fussy about certain things you eat might not be a major problem if the rest of your diet is varied, suggests Barbara Powell.

However, if the fussiness or even food phobia is widespread, so limiting the diet considerably, then it may affect health. Powell adds: 'The body can be maladaptive for some time with a restricted diet, but the negative impact of such little variation in the diet may show a number of years down the line.

'Your digestive system needs good nutrients to work, so limiting those will also mean that absorption of the nutrients from the limited foods you eat will be poor.'

So what can you do if you think your fussy diet or food phobia is impacting on your health? Firstly, do check with your GP for a medical assessment, and then the advice Powell gives is to see a qualified nutritional therapist to help make the necessary changes in your diet and potentially work with you on other issues.

Concluding, she says: 'We would normally try introducing different foods and supplements to the diet, but it is essential that this is done under supervision.'