Covid-19 may be turning children into fussy eaters, experts suggest

Chocolate for example may smell like petrol, or someone may smell rotting cabbage instead of lemon.

James Linford, 15-year-old boy from Christchurch, had Covid-19 and one of the symptoms was losing sense of taste and smell.

“It was horrible to see him like this.”

James’ mother, Anita Linford was shocked when her child refused to eat his favourite takeaway. She says: “During Covid-19, James lost his sense of smell and taste. Everything smelled either vinegary, disgusting or plain.

“One day he couldn’t taste or smell some of the foods, and he was pretty upset over it. We decided to get a Chinese takeaway to cheer him up. When the food arrived, he refused to eat it, which has never happened, because he couldn’t taste or smell it.

“It was horrible to see him like this.”

Smell experts at the University of East Anglia and Fifth Sense, the charity for people affected by smell and taste disorders, say children in particular may be finding it hard to eat foods they once loved.

Fifth Sense and Carl Philpott, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, are launching guidance to help parents and healthcare professionals better recognise the disorder.

Anita’s sister, Nikki Linford also experienced loss of taste and smell, alongside her 12-year-old daughter Sarah.

She says: “Sarah did lose taste and smell, and she said water tasted strange. I remember I also got the same, water actually tasted unpleasant, which is very weird.

“She also lost her appetite because there was no real joy to eat anything at the moment.

“Luckily, when we got our sense of taste and smell back, including Sarah. We bounced back to eating our favourite foods, because we knew we liked them anyway. 

“There wasn’t too much of a change.”

Professor Philpott says: “Parosmia is thought to be a product of having less smell receptors working which leads to only being able to pick up some of the components of a smell mixture.

“We know that an estimated 250,000 adults in the UK have suffered parosmia as a result of a Covid-19 infection. But in the last few months, particularly since Covid-19 started sweeping through classrooms last September, we’ve become more and more aware that it’s affecting children too.

“In many cases the condition is putting children off their food, and many may be finding it difficult to eat at all. It’s something that until now hasn’t really been recognised by medical professionals, who just think the kids are being difficult eaters without realising the underlying problem.”