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Scientists say that some people who catch Covid develop parosmia – a symptom where people experience strange and often unpleasant smell distortions.
Instead of smelling a lemon sufferers smell rotting cabbage, or chocolate may smell like petrol.
As many as 250,000 adults in the UK have suffered from the condition as a result of Covid infection.
And now smell experts say it could be turning children against their food, with many finding it difficult to eat anything at all.
Professor Carl Philpott, from the University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School, joined up with charity Fifth Sense to release guidance and help parents and healthcare professionals better recognise the disorder.
Professor Philpott said: '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 infection.
You can’t walk past a bakery without gagging, the smell of onions makes you physically sick and even brushing your teeth is unbearable. It sounds unthinkable, yet that’s the reality for tens of thousands of people after getting Covid — myself included
