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We tried everything. NONE of it works if you have THAT kind of person who just can’t stand things and is not fooled by the tricks some try to pull. I think it’s partly genetic - I was called “picky” by my family but not nearly like my husband. I too have texture (and visual) issues, though not much. (I don’t like onions and tomatoes because of those, but I like the flavor. Hate peppers for all reasons.)

None of it applies, and punishing them by forcing them to eat or stay at table just backfires. The “sweet” thing doesn’t apply to him either - in fact, I TRIED to use sweets to entice him into eating more, trying more, but he just doesn’t like what he doesn’t like. He is just as picky about junk food as any.

Nope, all I ended up doing was “you must eat this tiny bit I put on your plate” of each of 2 or 3 kinds of things. A tiny bit wasn’t the torture (for all of us) that a whole serving would be. He does that.

Sympathies to you, I have mostly outgrown it now but I come from a family of picky eaters. And we were stubborn also and perfectly willing to not eat anything if it wasn't what we wanted. I guess most others have not had to deal with that type of thing. My dad is still a very picky eater while 25 years eating food prepared by other firefighters cured me.

When I was a teen, I rode my bicycle approximately 300 miles a week year round, and had to eat so much to supply the energy that I needed that I got enough nutrients to stay healthy despite my pickyness. But when you need to eat two or three times what most people do to maintain your body weight and maintain that type of activity level... the majority of your calories almost by necessity have to come from carbohydrates. Your digestive system has a difficult time processing that much protein and fat. Fortunately I did like a wide variety cafeteria type foods. I drank literally a gallon of milk a day, and who knows how many pizzas that I ate.

My drivers Education instructor was the wrestling coach and when we graduated from that class we all went to a lunch time pizza buffet and had a contest to see who could eat the most pizza. I was 135 pounds and skinny as a rail but ate 23 large slices. The nearest competitor was our teacher but he was several slices short of that. I used to run the 3 miles home from school every day and the pizza kind of wanted to come up. Then I went for a 40 mile bike ride and had no problems other than having to drink more water than normal.