AFRID Treatment

ARFID or Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder was previously referred to as “Selective Eating Disorder.” While ARFID is like anorexia in that it involves limitations on the amount or type of food consumed, it does not involve concern about body shape, size or weight.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition, states that a diagnosis of ARFID is made when the following criteria are met:

• An eating or feeding disturbance (e.g., apparent lack of interest in eating or food; avoidance based on the sensory characteristics of food; concern about aversive consequences of eating) as manifested by persistent failure to meet appropriate nutritional and/or energy needs associated with one (or more) of the following:
  • Significant weight loss (or failure to achieve expected weight gain or faltering growth in children).
  • Significant nutritional deficiency.
  • Dependence on enteral feeding or oral nutritional supplements.
  • Marked interference with psychosocial functioning.
  • The disturbance is not better explained by lack of available food or by an associated culturally sanctioned practice.
  • The eating disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, and there is no evidence of a disturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced.
  • The eating disturbance is not attributable to a concurrent medical condition or not better explained by another mental disorder. When the eating disturbance occurs in the context of another condition or disorder, the severity of the eating disturbance exceeds that routinely associated with the condition or disorder and warrants additional clinical attention.

There are many children that go through phases of picky eating, however, individuals with ARFID do not consume enough calories for proper growth and functioning. For children, this can result in the failure to gain weight and in adults it can lead to weight loss.