Kristen Carder 0:00
We’re going to talk about the eating disorder ARFID. Let’s talk about first, what happens when you eat a limited variety of foods, since let’s talk about what happens when you become more careful about eating after a negative experience with food.
Hey, what’s up? This is Kristin Carter, and you’ve tuned into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Get in here. We’re going to have a great time today. How are you welcome? Welcome to the show. I’m so glad you press play on this podcast. I say it a lot, but I really do mean it. I know you have a lot of choices out there. When I first started this podcast, there were like two other ADHD podcasts on the planet. This is back in 2018 2019, and now there are so many great podcasts for people with ADHD. I’m really glad you press play on this one. Thank you for being here.
I have a confession to make. I am going to really like pull back the curtain and say that I am so not prepared to record today’s podcast. I have my editing deadline on Tuesday, which is in just a couple days, and that means that my book that I’ve been writing since May, I wrote all of the chapters, then editors gave me tons of feedback, and then for the last six weeks, it’s been my job to go back and like implement all of the feedback that they’ve given me and edit the entire book, hundreds and hundreds of pages of my writing. And that has been an incredible hurdle. It has been my Everest, and I’ve been working on it. And I don’t know about you, I do think this is very common for people with ADHD. When you have something huge that you’re working on, everything else just doesn’t take priority. And so, like, literally, my book is the only thing that I can think about. I do show up and do my job to the best of my ability. But other than that, I am, just like all consumed with this huge project is probably hyper focus, and that’s fine. I embrace it. I welcome it. But also, oh my goodness, has it made just like living the rest of my life very, very difficult. So that’s what I’m working on right now. We are, we are planning a publishing date for October 2026, so we’re pretty close to publishing. And do you know that I am freaking out. Do you know that my rejection sensitivity is already on overdrive, where I’m like, people are gonna read like, it’s not it’s not just that I’m writing the book, which is hard, but now I’m grappling with people are gonna read this like I am putting my heart, my soul, a lot of personal stories, a lot of my childhood stories, which are complicated and messy, that’s in the book. And, you know, while I’ve been writing it, it’s been kind of activating, but I’ve been getting through it, but now the idea of people actually reading it, I’m like, Oh my gosh, that is, like, Next Level emotional regulation work that I’ve been doing.
So I am here. I am recording. I drove to Manayunk this morning. I am happy to be here. The weather is horrible. It’s freezing and windy and like, we’re here. But I do want you to know that, like, if you ever show up to work and you’re just like, I am so unprepared, and I’m just gonna fake it till I make it today. That’s where I’m at, okay? And I think that’s okay. You’re good at your job. I’m good at my job. And sometimes we just show up and we just do the work feeling like I’m not sure how this is gonna go. Let’s find out. So the beauty here is that we’re finding out together how this is going to go. Today’s podcast is actually very near and dear to my heart, because we’re going through something we meaning me and the people that I love that is complicated and new, and I’m going to share it with you, because I actually think that this is a conversation that we don’t have in the ADHD community very often. And we’re going to talk about the eating disorder arfid, which stands for avoidant, restrictive food intake disorder. I, over the years, have followed on social media a couple people with arfid, but I had a very limited and I just followed because I was interested. I thought they were interesting people, but I had a very limited idea of what it meant to have arfid. Recently, somebody that I love has been diagnosed with this disorder, and I’m going to share everything that I’m learning. About It with you today, because I suspect that many of you and maybe your kids are struggling with this without realizing that it’s an actual disorder that can be treated. So that’s where we’re going today.
Before we get there, I do want to let you know if you have ADHD, if you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, or if you’re learning about ADHD, and nobody’s really told you what it means to have ADHD, if you were diagnosed and you were handed a prescription like me, this was my diagnosis experience. I was diagnosed at around age 2021, I can’t exactly remember, and when I was diagnosed, they said, Yep, you have ADHD. Here’s a prescription. Have a great life. And while the prescription was helpful, I didn’t learn much about what it meant to have ADHD until 15 years later. I don’t want you to have that same experience. Because of that, I developed a resource for you called 10 things. I wish my doctor had told me about ADHD. You can find it. If you go to I have adhd.com/ten, things. It is comprehensive, and in it, you’re going to find all of the things that I wish that I knew right away when I was diagnosed, instead of my doctor being like, yes, you have ADHD. Here’s a prescription. I wish they had given me more information. Okay, what does it mean to have ADHD? What should I expect? What parts of my life are connected to ADHD? What’s the difference between my own character flaws and the symptoms of ADHD? So go to, I have adhd.com/ten, things, if you’re interested in that resource. Also, we’re going to pop it in the show notes, if you’re a show notes kind of person, but I also know that you can multitask right now while you’re listening to this podcast, if you want to go to I have adhd.com/10things, you can find that resource for you. There it is, it. It is like a labor of love that I created because I really want us to be more equipped with information about ADHD. What does it mean to have ADHD? What does it matter? What does it even matter that I have ADHD? What are the implications? That’s what this resource is all about. So I hope that you will grab it, if it sounds like it would be useful to you. Okay, so I’m going to tell you the story of how all of this came to about, came about with this eating disorder discovery. And one of the lines that I have to walk with having this podcast is I want to share information with you. I also want to share my story and be vulnerable with you. And also sometimes I want to really protect the identity of the people that are involved in the story, so I’m not I’m going to try to be really protective of who I’m talking about, and just make sure that I’m not sharing someone else’s story that’s not mine to share, but as a person involved. It’s very complicated. I wonder if you can like relate to this, where it’s like, I don’t want to disclose anything too much, but also, if I don’t say anything, I’m not going to help anybody. That’s where I’m at. If I don’t say anything, I’m not going to help anybody. And my job, my job is to show up here and help you.
So I’m going to you me try to, like, dance around some things. This is why I really want to protect people’s identity and I want to help you at the same time. So there’s someone in my life that I love very much that has been wanting to gain weight, but has been struggling to do it, and we’ve had conversations with this person and said, hey, you know, if you want to gain weight, here are the ways that you do it. We’re going to eat more food. We’re going to eat more calorie dense foods. And none of the traditional advice was helpful. That’s key here. So I want you to, like, keep that in your mind. None of the traditional advice for this person was helpful. As a matter of fact, it was activating. It was frustrating. It was triggering. And that makes things really complicated, right? Because when someone has a goal to increase their weight, but they’re activated by just like traditional advice, of like, well, eat more food and you’ll gain more weight. Then there’s kind of an issue here. So this person went to a doctor’s appointment and relayed this to a doctor. Now, how many of you have been to a doctor and you’ve kind of, like, exposed yourself, and you’ve been vulnerable, and you’ve asked for help, and they’ve responded to you in a way that really makes you feel dismissed, unheard and like they just do not get it. And that was this person’s exact experience they came out of the doctor’s appointment being so activated. So like on fire with just like this person did not understand. And again, the traditional advice didn’t resonate. The traditional advice of like, eat more foods. Let’s look into calorie tracking. Let’s look into, you know, more calorie dense foods. Not helpful. So what we discovered, what we discovered and like now, looking back, it just makes so much sense, and so I really hope this resonates with you.
What we discovered is that this person was actually struggling with an eating disorder. Now I would have never clocked them as having an eating disorder, because I grew up in the 90s, and my perception of what an eating disorder looks like is anorexia or bulimia, someone who is extremely obsessed with their body, somebody who is wanting, you know, all day long, thinking about their body. And obviously I don’t know much about anorexia or bulimia, but this was my perception, that it was body like. Eating disorders are body focused. Eating disorders are, you know, you want to lose weight. Eating disorders are, you’re obsessed with how you look and you’re trying to change it. And that’s not at all what this person was struggling with. And so I never, ever would have thought that they would be diagnosed with an eating disorder, but they were. We’re going to talk all about it. I’m going to go into it in depth, and I hope that it’s so helpful for you. So they were diagnosed with arfid, which stands for avoidant, restrictive food intake disorder. Now, people with arfid have an eating disorder, but it is not a body based eating disorder in that they’re not trying to, like change the way their body looks, okay, but let me describe it to you a little bit. People with arfid Eat a very limited variety or amount of food, and it causes problems in their lives. These problems may be health related, like losing too much weight or not getting enough nutrients. And these problems also may be social, like not being able to eat meals with others. Arfid is different from other eating disorders. This is so important, and this is what, like, completely shocked me. Arfid is different from other eating disorders like anorexia, because people with arfid Don’t worry much about how they look or about how they weigh. Instead, people with arfid might have one or two or three of these important concerns, and we’re going to go through them. Number one, some people with arfid Find that novel foods have a strange or intense taste, like a texture or a smell, and they feel safer eating foods that they know very well. I just wonder, like, Who of you relates to this, or how many of you can look at your kids and say, oh, yeah, okay. They find novel foods have a stranger, intense taste, texture or smell, and they feel safer eating foods that they know very well. Number two, and this is interesting, and I think this is the type of arfid that I have seen portrayed on social media. Another aspect of arfid is that people have had a scary experience with food like choking or throwing up or an allergic reaction, so they might avoid the food that made them sick that one time, or stop eating it all together.
And then lastly, and this is primarily what the person that I love struggles with, still others don’t feel hungry very often, or they think that eating is a chore, or they get full very quickly, which can also be a sensory issue. So you get full quickly, and you don’t like the feeling of being full. It feels bad in your body, and so you try to avoid the feeling of being very full. One of the conversations that we had with this person you know, back before we had all of this information, they would say, I’m full, and we would say that’s totally fine if you want to gain weight, part of gaining weight is eating a little bit past that feeling of being full. And that was really difficult for them to receive, and it made them really upset, because the experience in their body of being really full was so uncomfortable, they couldn’t even imagine having to eat past that feeling of being full. So I just, I just want to pause here and ask you, does this. Feel like you or anyone you love, because the more that I have, like, pulled this apart, learned about it. I can see this in myself, 100% 100% this is something. I can see this in me as a kiddo. I can see this in my kids as they were, kiddos, like, maybe not to a diagnosable extent, but definitely tendencies of it. Here’s the part that is so important for everyone to understand about arfid. And sorry, I’m like struggling to speak because I really want to say this gently, a lot of clinicians don’t know about arfid. A lot of doctors don’t know about arfid, and so they will label people or children as being picky or being stubborn or needing boundaries. And that’s not at all what it is. It’s not about being picky, it’s not about being stubborn.
On the contrary, people with arfid have underlying biological traits that initially made their eating habits a logical choice, and then once established those logical choices that they were making, develop a pattern, a pattern of avoidance becomes this long standing, you know, a habit, and then they’re highly resistant to change. Huge, huge, huge, huge. How many of you are parenting kids that are really, really picky eaters? One of the struggles in my own family is, you know, my husband was raised in a family where you just eat what’s on the table, nobody complains about it, and he never had a problem just eating what was put in front of him. God, bless. That’s amazing. I come from a family where we all had kind of like sensory things. We all struggled to eat. My mom would say, like, you eat like a bird, you hardly eat anything. And looking back, I can see like, yeah, it was a texture issue for me. It was a safety issue for me. It was a like a resistant to new for me, and to hear like, this is an underlying biological trait. It’s like that is so, so helpful. Okay, the good news is that these patterns can be interrupted and arfid can be worked with. And there are, there are things that we’re going to talk about later that will help. But let’s talk about, first, what happens when you eat a limited variety of foods. Okay, so what’s interesting, and what I’ve learned is that flavor preferences are partially genetic, which is fascinating, because if you’ve ever blamed your kids, like, what is wrong with you, you’re like, why can’t you just try something new, like understanding, oh, it’s, it’s actually genetic. Flavor preferences are actually partially genetic.
That’s really, really, really important. And also, people with arfid are often super tasters, meaning that they could have been born with high concentration of taste buds on their tongue and dislike things like bitter foods, vegetables like is this why I can’t eat a vegetable? I said this to my husband the other day. Is is arfid Now, to be clear, I have not been diagnosed. I I believe that I am accommodating myself well, and I have good nutrition, intake, blah, blah, blah. But is this why I can’t eat a vegetable. Is this, why? Like the thought of cooking like broccoli and then actually eating it or a green bean? Get out of here. I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. And I’m a 44 year old, educated, grown ass woman. Why can’t I eat a vegetable? Why can’t I do it? Is it perhaps because I’m a super taster, that that, like, the bitter foods are just like, explosively disgusting in my mouth? Maybe, maybe, okay, so what’s so interesting is that once someone with arfid develops this pattern of limited food intake, so there’s like, just a small amount of foods that they’re willing and able to eat, then that limited diet does keep arfid going. So it’s kind of like this loop of like I start with a limited diet that feels safe and good to me, but because I only have a limited diet, it keeps this avoidant, restrictive diet in play.
Okay, because eating the same foods all the time makes new foods taste even more different, and certain nutrition deficiencies can change the way that food tastes, making new foods even less appealing, and eating a particular food over and over over might also make you tired of that food. So how many of you are like eating. Eating eggs every day. I’m gonna eat eggs every day, and then all of a sudden the eggs start tasting very eggy. Has anyone experienced this like, all of the sudden the eggs are just like, this is tasting very Eggy, and you just, like, never eat it again. Anyone just me? Maybe it’s just me. So like, you get tired of that food, and you stop eating it, and then your diet becomes even more limited, because one of your safe foods is no longer available to you. Eating a very limited diet can also cause serious health problems, because eating preferred foods in like higher sugar and fat is associated, obviously with diabetes and heart disease. Like we know this because we’re educated, and that’s part of the problem is, like, for me, I know that vegetables are good for me. I understand that, like, no duh, I already know that. But why can’t I get myself to eat them?
So avoiding non preferred foods like fruits and vegetables is obviously going to be associated with with health risks, with cancers, with diabetes, like those kinds of things. That’s not good. That’s not good for us. It may be hard to eat. This is so interesting, like the social component. And one of my kids expressed this just kind of randomly a couple weeks ago. They said, they said, when I get a girlfriend, my biggest fear is that I’ll go to their house and the family will serve something that I literally can’t eat. And at the time, this was before I had done research on arfid, I was kind of like, I kind of just like, laughed it off. I was like, Oh, that’s so cute. Like, you’ll you’ll be fine. Hello, dismiss, dismissive. Mother. Like, what if this child is actually struggling with arfid? What if this is actually a very real, valid anxiety that they have? Like, what if this child actually needs some therapy to be able to eat outside of, like, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, hamburgers. Do you know what I’m saying? Somebody recently told me that their fiance had to go to therapy in order to, like, work up the ability to eat the meal that they served at their wedding. Like this is not nothing y’all. And it’s not just kids that struggle with it. It’s adults as well. Imagine being like, okay, we’re having this wedding. We’re having this fancy dinner. Obviously, like a hot dog is not going to be served. I’m the groom. It’s my responsibility to, like, obviously, I’m going to be hungry. I have to eat in front of all of these people at the head table, but I don’t want to eat this stuff. I don’t want to eat what’s on the plate. It’s disgusting to me. It’s it. There’s anxiety there. I can’t even imagine when they shared that with me. I was like, you should look into arfid, because, of course, I’ve been going down the rabbit hole. So additionally, what happens? Let’s talk about what happens when you become more careful about eating after a negative experience with food. So remember, part of the arfid experience for some is that they’ve had a negative experience with the food, maybe they choked on it, maybe they threw up afterwards, maybe they got sick afterwards, and now they’ve restricted their diet from that food because of that negative experience. So let’s talk about that negative experiences with food, such as choking, vomiting, an allergic reaction, or pain after eating.
Obviously, that can be traumatic, right? And those experience might cause you to limit your diet to prevent further trauma, so you might even avoid any food that reminds you of that traumatic experience or stop eating altogether. Ooh, how does avoiding foods or eating altogether keep arfid going? You may be using safe behaviors to try to prevent another traumatic experience from happening, like taking really, really small bites, chewing food for much longer than needing needed only eating at familiar restaurants or not eating at all. Safety behaviors prevent you from testing negative predictions about eating. What’s so fascinating, and you can see how this is just a perpetuated cycle because safety behaviors. Those safety behaviors of like not eating or only eating at familiar restaurants, or chewing much longer, et cetera. I just listed them. Those safety behaviors prevent you from testing your negative predictions about the food. So it’s like, this food makes me sick, that’s what we’ve decided, because it made me sick that one time. I’m never going to try it again. So I never get to test that prediction and prove it untrue. I never get to disprove that right? And the more you avoid eating, the scarier it becomes. Times I just wonder like, Who are you thinking about right now? Are you thinking about you? You thinking about your partner? You think about your cousin, you thinking about your kids?
I know who I’m thinking about right now. Okay, so what happens when you eat a limited volume of food. This is fascinating, and this is one of the things that the person that I love struggles with the most, because how hungry you feel and how much pleasure that you get from eating is partially due to your genes. And I believe that this person has a very low like dopamine experience with food, they just don’t care about it that much. Eating very little can cause you to feel full quickly, right? Even though you’re not getting enough nutrients, your stomach is still shrunk. And so you eat a little bit, you feel full. And then perhaps there’s that sensory experience of, I hate the feeling of being full. I don’t want to keep eating. I’m not going to eat past this feeling of being full because it feels horrible to me in my body, and so my stomach stays really, really small, and I’m just not getting enough nutrients. Eating without a regular schedule. And hello, ADHD, or is this you eating without a regular schedule of meals and snacks can dull hunger cues. I didn’t know that. What I learned about arfid is that our hunger cues are in a rhythm. They’re in a rhythm.
So just like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, our sleep and how our circadian rhythm when it is healthy, we wake up at a certain time, and we’re naturally feeling that melatonin kick in and getting sleepy at a certain time. And it’s a rhythm that is supposed to, and I’m using air quotes here, supposed to happen kind of like on the same schedule every day. When that circadian rhythm is off. You don’t feel yourself getting tired at the quote, unquote, right time. So 11pm comes, 12am comes, 1am comes, we’re still not getting tired because our rhythm is off. It is the same with eating. I had no idea eating without a regular schedule of meals and snacks can dull your hunger cues. So then when you’re eating at all different times of the day, your body doesn’t know when to send that signal to you to say, hey, it’s time to eat, because there is no quote, unquote, right time to eat, because you’re always eating at random times. I know that this has been an issue with me, and actually, like in being married to a very stable, systematic man, that has helped a lot, because I just use him as a body double when he eats lunch, I’m not actually hungry, but because I see him eating, I’m just like, oh, I guess it’s time to eat, and I’m able now I wasn’t before, but I’m able now to kind of make myself just eat with him, because I know he eats on a regular schedule, and it just makes sense, like my body does need fuel. I know that. I guess it’s because I’m so mature at 44 that I’m able to, like get myself to do that. But when we were first married, and, you know, it would be like a Saturday, and he would eat, and I would just be like, I don’t feel like eating, and I would go for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours without eating, because I just never felt the hunger cue. Okay, eating too little can promote excessive fullness when you do eat an adequate amount, because your stomach capacity decreases with chronic food restriction. We already touched on that a little bit.
Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time and you wake up early, make a list, cross the things off the list in order manage your time. Well, yeah, we know what to do, but ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It’s a disorder of knowing exactly what to do but not being able to get yourself to do it. That’s why ADHD is so frustrating. We’re smart and we want to succeed, but we can’t get ourselves to do the things that we know we should do in order to make improvements. That’s why I created focused I’m a life coach with multiple certifications, and since 2019 I’ve spent 1000s of hours coaching adults with ADHD. Time for me to focus on you. Hello. Welcome to your coaching call. I am going to be coaching you today on relationships. I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from Hot Mess express to grounded and thriving. Focused. Is my monthly coaching membership where we go deep and we get to the root cause of what holds us back with ADHD, I’ll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain regulate your emotion. Actions and accept yourself flaws and all with this foundation, we build the skills to improve life with ADHD. And not only do you get skills and tools in focus, but you’re surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr Ned Hallowell says healing happens in community, and I have absolutely found this to be true. As a matter of fact, listen to what actual focus members have to say about being in this program.
Focused Member 30:31
What can I say about focused, full community of people who have issues similar to you and no one judge you? Focus just really supported me with my difficulties and asking for help. I’ve been encouraged and cheered on by the community.
I really like that you can do as much or as little as you want. It’s it’s not just about the volume of the content. It’s about the quality. Focus. Is how we understand ADHD better. I would recommend this to anyone.
I would thoroughly recommend focus. I can confidently say that this is one of the best decisions that I have made for myself.
Kristen Carder 31:00
So if you’re an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make real, lasting changes in your life, join hundreds of others from around the world in focused click the link in the episode description to check it out. How you doing. Isn’t this fascinating? I find this so fascinating because I didn’t know how pervasive arfid is in the neurodivergent community until I started to do a little research. And I do believe that a lot of us likely struggle, maybe not to a diagnosable level. But I think there’s a lot of this in a lot of us, a lot of this in a lot of us, certainly in myself, how does eating very little again? This is a cycle that we’re talking about here, right? It’s like the patterns are established, but then when they continue, they then perpetuate arfid, avoidant, restrictive food intake, disorder. How does eating very little keep arfid going? Even if you’re born with a smaller appetite than others, eating very little may further reduce your appetite. This is particularly true if you also limit your food variety. Eating a limited variety can decrease your ability to eat a sufficient volume of food, because you get bored of eating the same things and then you just eat less of them. Makes sense to me. You may experience low mood, irritability, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, difficulty concentrating or social isolation, and you may also experience significant weight loss, osteoporosis, loss of menses, muscle wasting, decreased heart rate, or other medical problems. I mean, absolutely fascinating. So let me tell you what we have been working on with this person that we love. We once they went to the doctor and the doctor was like, Yeah, you’re just gonna need to eat more food. And then they came out of that doctor’s appointment being like, I hate everyone, and nothing is going to help me, and no one understands me. I finally woke up to I wonder if we need to find someone who specializes in neurodivergent people. And when I did that, I did a quick Google, and I found this amazing company. Now this is not sponsored, although I haven’t even disclosed to them, like who I am, what I do now is not the time, but the company is called equip health, and they work with people with eating disorders. When I reached out to them, I said, this person has not been diagnosed with an eating disorder.
I don’t even know if you could help them, but it seems like what you do, it matches what they’re struggling with. So can we have a conversation? Little did I know they would be subsequently diagnosed with arfid, um, but what equip health does is they connect you with a medical provider, a dietitian, a therapist and a family support person, and it’s like a comprehensive care I am obsessed with them. Obsessed. Could not be happier with them and what they’re doing with this person that I love very much, and the ways that they understand and support their neurodivergent brain, it is absolutely incredible. I am obsessed. So again, it’s called equip health. We’ll put a link in the show notes. But let me tell you a little bit about what they are doing specifically. So how is arfid treated? What’s fascinating is that there is a very established treatment plan for this eating disorder, which is amazing. So they use a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. So it’s cognitive behavioral therapy for arfid, if you want to do a Google it’s called CBT dash AR, that is the abbreviation for it. So it’s cognitive behavioral therapy for arfid, or CBT AR, and the main treatment goals for most people are achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, correcting any nutritional deficiencies, eating foods from each of the five basic food groups. Like, if I look at that one, I’m like, oh shoot, I’m not doing a good job with that, although, just like mini ad for ag one here, I hope, I think, and I hope that that is a good replacement. So for me, because I can’t get myself to eat a vegetable, I take ag one every single day. And is it delicious? I mean, it’s fine. Do I just gulp it down every morning in 20 sips, like I’ve told you 100 times, yeah, and I give myself a little pep talk every time. I’m like, 20 sips and you’re done, 20 sips and you’re done. And I do it every single day. Why? Because I can’t eat a vegetable and like, Is this why I almost like, I’m, if you’re watching on YouTube, I’m like, hiding. I do. I feel shame.
I feel ashamed. I’m a grown woman. I’m I’m fully grown, I’m educated, I’m smart, I’m a mom of three beautiful humans. I am running a successful company. I’m here like, you know, with cute, curled hair. I can’t eat a vegetable, so like I’m getting hot talking to you about this. Anyway, anyway, I just I’m sharing all of this from sharing the story of the person I love, sharing my own personal story, because I want to let you know that if this is something that you struggle with, you’re not alone. If this is something your your child or your partner struggles with, you’re not alone. They’re not alone. There is actually a there could be a reason for it, and that reason might be arfid, obviously, I have no idea your personal experience. And I’m not here to diagnose, nor could I, but that could be something that’s going on. So this is one I got distracted, obviously, but it’s one of the main treatment goals, is to eat foods from each of the five basic food groups, like fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy and grains, and feeling more comfortable eating in social situations. So for example, you know, my kid that expressed to me like, Oh, my biggest fear is going to my girlfriend’s house, and like, being served ravioli, and I can’t eat ravioli, those kinds of things. Like, should we be having to feel that much anxiety about it.
Should we, should we be having to feel like that much social pressure and shame, or is this something that we can work with and C, B T, A R, C, B T, A R is a therapy that works to improve. Here’s what treatment is not though. It’s not about trying to change your personality. It’s not about making you eat very unusual foods. It’s not about force feeding. It’s not about changing your body. It’s none of that, and it what I have found, at least with equip, which is the company that we’re working with. What I have found is that it is so warm and friendly and acknowledging of like who you are, so it’s trying to figure out, like, how your brain is working, and how we can help you to think through eating in a way that helps, helps You to do more of it, more variety, more calorie intake, without trying to say like you’re doing it wrong or you’re thinking about it wrong. Just learning about this disorder has changed a lot for the person that I love, just having the validation of I’m not weird, there’s nothing wrong with me. This is actually a thing. It has a name. It has a treatment. Just that alone has been so validating and helpful. And I wonder if just listening to this podcast, if you’re thinking about it, and just feeling like relief, because that has been an interesting experience, is watching the relief happen of like, oh, this is a thing. Oh, I’m not just being annoying or stubborn. I think there’s a lot of like value. Validation and relief there. So I hope you’re finding that to be true, usually within the CB, CBT, AR model, you’re also going to set some some big goals, right? Setting goals like increasing calorie intake or volume of food or food variety.
So there are like, goals in there, and there’s also, it kind of reminds me of exposure and Response Prevention therapy, which is used for OCD. There is an element of like, facing your fears. And again, I think this is what I have seen from the people that I’ve followed over the years on social media. Is, you know, like this, like sweet little girl that I followed. And I did go looking for her account, but couldn’t find it. So maybe I don’t follow her anymore, but she would sit down with like, pickles in front of her, and she’d be like, Hi, my name is so and so I have arfid, and today I’m going to be trying pickles. And you would just like, watch her work through the fear of trying this new food, and it was just so beautiful. Like, I loved following her, because you’re watching, first of all, she was little and cute, like just the sweetest little thing, but also just watching someone face their fear. There’s something so amazing about that, and I think that that is what I thought arfid was right. Like, I was like, oh, that’s what arfid is. And the person that I love that was recently diagnosed with it actually doesn’t struggle with trying new foods. They’re actually pretty adventurous with trying new foods. Now. They’re not going to incorporate it into their daily diet, but I’ve seen them try new foods and like, oh yeah, I’ll try that. I’ll try that. Like, so it’s just, it’s so confusing. So I just, I’m really happy to be able to talk about it in more depth, because I had a very narrow perspective of what arfid was. I thought it was just like being afraid of food. It’s not it’s so much more than that. So, but part of the CBT AR model is helping clients patients to get exposed to food like new food or feared foods, and taste small amounts at first and then incorporate larger amounts and then once a patient is considered like, you know, healed. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, actually, because I’m not a clinician, so I don’t think there’s like, it’s not like, Oh, we’re curing it, and it’s done forever. But anyway, my point is, once they have reached certain milestones, then part of the therapy is making sure that they’re preventing relapse. Okay, so, like, as a part of completing the treatment, developing new skills plan to keep practicing on your own. For anyone who is like wondering, like, Okay, what does this actually look like? Practically like practically like, if I were to reach out to a company like equip or equip itself, I will say that it is pretty demanding. At first, there are therapy sessions, there are dietitian sessions, there are medical appointments.
They do it in a way that really makes sure that the there’s a lot of care around the person and making sure that they are, you know, becoming more healthy, but they’re so supportive and wonderful. If it’s a child, the parents probably will be needing to attend the sessions, which is beautiful, and there are at home, like charts and practice, you know, things for it’s so fascinating because it’s similar to coaching, where you’re checking in with your thoughts, you’re checking in with how you feel, you’re checking in about your motives and, like, why you do or do not want To eat, which I think is just so beautiful. So I just think that this is a really important discussion to have in the neurodivergent community. So why are we talking about this is a very important conversation to have, and I wish I had known about it sooner. I can’t believe we’re on episode 380 and this is the first time that I’m talking about arfid in the context of our neurodivergent community. So I just want to say, like, as I continue to learn, I will always be sharing with you, but I also have this, like, I wish I had known earlier that I could have gotten the word out about this, because a quick Google shows that of people diagnosed with arfid, about 25% of those people have ADHD, and up to about 33% of people with autism are diagnosed with arfid. And so in this context between us and our kids and our partners. And the people that we love arfid is a thing, and so few people have ever talked about it. And like I said, I know I followed creators who have arfid, but my perception of it was so narrow. I thought it was just like being afraid of new foods, but it’s so much more than that, avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder even just that avoidant and restrictive, like how many of you are parenting kids who are avoidant and restrictive when it comes to their eating. So I hope that this opens up just like a whole new understanding of ourselves and of the people we love. I hope that this allows us to encourage people and not call them stubborn, not call them picky. I know that I’ve had a lot of judgment of my kids, I feel so mad like this is just like another thing that we’re gonna have to repair. And if you’re a parent, you know what I’m talking about, but the limited variety of foods that they eat, and me just being like, Oh my gosh. Like, why can’t you guys just eat normal it? I think a lot of it has to do with whether it’s diagnosable or where, whether there’s just arfid tendencies. I think a lot of it has to do with neurodivergence and arfid being a thing.
So let’s just recap, just very, very briefly, people with arfid Get a limited variety of food or a limited amount of food, okay, and it causes issues in their lives, like low weight or nutritional deficiencies. Okay? The problems can be health related, like losing too much weight, not being able to gain weight, not getting enough nutrition. And the issues can be social as well. So like, I have anxiety about eating in front of people, or I have anxiety about going to new places, or I don’t want to go to these restaurants that my entire friend group is, where the entire friend group is going to get sushi, and I can’t even imagine eating sushi, but I don’t want to be left out and so, like, what do I do with that? Okay, and remember to keep in mind that arfid is different from other eating disorders like anorexia, because people with arfid, don’t worry much about how they look or about how much they weigh. That’s not what it’s about. Okay? It’s more about finding novel foods being strange, intense texture, sensory smell, all of that, gross, gross, gross. And so I eat just what feels safe to me, or I’ve had scary experiences with food, like throwing up or getting sick or having an allergic reaction, and so I really restrict the foods that I eat because I have a ton of anxiety around having that traumatic experience again, or I don’t feel hungry. I just don’t feel hungry very often I don’t think about eating. And when I do think about eating the labor. So this is I will just like, say, This is me, like, when I just don’t think about eating when I do, it’s such a chore. And so I will lay on the couch and be not now, but I will say, there have been times where I’ve just been kind of like, stuck on the couch, like I should eat, but I don’t want to eat. I should eat, but I don’t know what to eat. I should eat, but eating feels hard. This is where I’ve really leaned on my partner to be like, I need to eat.
Can you help me? But not everybody has that luxury, right? And so I just, I really hope that this was helpful. I I think we’re going to need to have a lot of conversations. I definitely want to have an expert on the podcast. I would also love to have somebody with diagnosed arfid on the podcast who has, like, struggled and then gone through treatment, and who can talk about that process. So this is something that we’ll be exploring in the coming months. I really, really hope it was helpful to you. I really hope that what it does, that it does for you, what it did for me, which is just deepen your understanding, deepen your empathy, deepen your ability to love and serve people who, on the outside maybe look picky or annoying or stubborn, but on the inside are struggling with high anxiety, with sensory issues, with with something that goes deeper, that’s something that goes much, much, much deeper than just being a picky eater. Okay, I hope you loved it. I hope it was helpful. I can’t wait to see you again next week. I’ll see you then, bye, bye.
