Many individuals living with ARFID, also known as Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, struggle with meal and snack variety. Often times throughout their life they experience unwanted comments or even bullying when it comes to their food selections and preferences. It can be overwhelming to feel so isolated with food.
I often here the following statements from clients:
"I want to eat like a grown up"
"I hate eating in front of other people"
"I don't understand why food has to be so hard"
"Why don't more people understand?"
"Is there something wrong with me?"
These are heartbreaking to hear and even more heartbreaking for those living with ARFID to feel about themselves and their food choices. As a care provider that specializes in working with people in recovery from feeding and eating disorders, I'm happy to say when we start care it's not what most people expect. As part of our proven three step approach to recovery from ARFID, we simply start with our safe foods and fuel the body appropriately.
One of the things I find myself saying often in sessions is, "an underfed brain is an anxious brain". When applied to care and recovery with ARFID, most people struggle to eat enough because of low hunger cues or lack of interest in food in general. At the heart of our approach to care, we meet the person where they are. Fuel them with their safe foods to help ease the anxiety the brain is experiencing and promote a safe approach moving forward.
So, to answer the question as the title of this blog post, the answer is yes you can recover from ARFID. The definition of recovery just looks a bit different from person to person.
Michelle Riggs, RDN, LD
Registered Dietitian & Owner
From Scratch Nutrition LLC
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