'Hidden condition means I have no idea what I smell like and can eat absolutely anything'

The one thing Jonathan Kenwright wishes he could smell the most was himself. The 20-year-old student has lived his whole life without the sense of smell but until the age of 14 he would pretend that he could.

At 14-years-old Jonathan was diagnosed with congenital anosmia which is the inability to smell. A rare disability, it affects around 1 in 10,000 people..

"People do say to me what would you really want to smell?” He told the Manchester Evening News.

“I’d really love to smell myself really. I have no clue what I smell like. When it comes to things like aftershave I have to trust the nose of people like my parents because I just don’t know.”

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Many children diagnosed with the anosmia are reportedly unaware they have the disability until they start high school and start interacting with people outside their immediate families. But Salford University student Jonathan says says that he had suspicions that something wasn’t right with his nose well before his diagnosis.

“Because I’d told my doctor I wasn’t able to smell they had to check if there was anything missing.” He explained.

“They found that I had a hole in my nose that meant I was unable to smell. It’s just a shock because not many people are born without it, it’s a tiny tiny percentage of the population.”

“I can’t remember the exact moment but a lot of people say you don’t realise until you interact with people your age.

“A lot of the time I would just pretend to smell something. You didn’t want to draw attention to yourself, it’s starts a conversation that you didn’t want to be part of.

“I don’t know why I did that. Now I’d just say ‘I can’t smell’ but back then