Tabitha Farrar talks to Hana Zickgraf about a recently published research paper titled: Adult picky eaters with symptoms of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder: comparable distress and comorbidity but different eating behaviors compared to those with disordered eating symptoms
Link to orginal study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5086050/
Study summary
Picky eaters are people who avoid many new and familiar foods because they dislike their taste, smell, texture, or appearance. When it is severe, picky eating can lead to weight loss or difficulty maintaining a healthy weight, nutritional deficiencies, dependence on supplements to get adequate nutrition or calories, or difficulty engaging in daily life because of shame, anxiety, or inconvenience. People who experience one or more of these consequences because of their picky eating can be diagnosed with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). People who restrict the amount of food they consume because they are afraid of gaining weight or being fat (and who usually engage in excessive exercise or purging behaviors to get rid of calories) are diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia when their eating leads to weight loss, nutritional problems, or interferes with life. ARFID is a new diagnosis, and in this paper, we show that 1) adults with ARFID symptoms are just as distressed, and just as likely to have symptoms of depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder, as those with anorexia or bulimia, but that 2) adults with ARFID symptoms show very different types of eating behavior from adults with symptoms of anorexia or bulimia.
Important to note that some of us who end up with AN or BN may have started with ARFID. I am in recovery from AN- binge purge subtype, I also have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. My ED started as ARFID and that is the problem that I am now attempting to deal with. Most of the AN and BN symptoms have gone but due to the ARFID, my eating is very rigid and very restrictive…not in amounts but in type and not for weight reasons but for the reasons associate with ARFID.
i started out with anorexia nervosa, purging subtype, when i was 17 years old. between the ages of 17-23 i was in and out of treatment. I eventually found the “all in” recovery method and truly believed I was recovered, I was so close. I gained to my setpoint that happens to be in the “overweight” category (bullshit). I’m now 25. The beginning of this year (2021), I began having severe stomach problems that turned out to be Barret’s esophagus (basically damage to the esophagus) and gastroparesis. I went months so sick and scared that I developed a fear of food again…but this time not because of weight reasons or a drive to be “healthy”. I am now TERRIFIED that if i eat, or if i eat over an arbitrary amount, that i’m going to get sick (nausea, vomiting, acid reflux, you name it). I make food and plate unrestrictedly, whatever sounds good, and when I go to eat it i’m paralyzed because i don’t want to get sick. I have been rapidly losing weight because of this and im so so so sad to see all my hard work in my AN recovery just disappearing, but people keep complimenting me because i’m a “healthy weight” again. I have realized this may be what they call “aversive arfid” and things make so much more sense. Thank you for this podcast. (I know im replying years after it’s posted, oops)