Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) |
What is ARFID? Janette Alonso, Licensed Psychotherapist, explains what it is about, how it is different from other eating disorders, and its symptoms, such as significant weight loss, and dependence on oral nutritional supplements.
Transcript
Now avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder right so the acronym our fit our avoidant restrictive food intake disorder again very different than your typical your typical eating disorder okay they start to avoid different foods for fear of either throwing up or you know again having an allergic reaction so it is it is very very different it’s all motivated by this feat right right so there is a lot of there’s yes intense fear and a lot of avoidance of just a way to protect themselves from not you know again their fear coming reality so you do see that our fit is again the avoid and restrictive food intake disorder something you sometimes see in younger children but it is definitely it is very different like I said body image is definitely not on the bottom of this and any other of what’s behind other disorders and Jeanette we see that with our fit there’s use notice a significant weight loss and nutritional deficiency as well right absolutely because if they’re eliminating so much of you know these food categories or not they are missing essential nutrients most likely that would happen so you definitely that is one of the diagnostic criteria now what is the dependence on oral nutritional supplements our intro feedings so they’re not obviously eating food but they’re taking supplements right so some of these clients get to the point where they can’t even eat solid food and in order to feed them you know you might have to use supplementation which is unfortunate but you know you might have to in order for them to be able to get an audience now what is what is it not so we have another graphic here showing what our food is not and it’s not associate again I want to reaffirm that because you mentioned this was not associated with body image right right so it definitely you won’t see these clients are not motivated by that they’re you don’t hear them saying that they feel in fact you may even want to assess for that because again you’re trying to differentiate between anorexia or anything else and at some point you’re asking about that and they have no concern about that that there fine with their body look that’s not even what they’re talking about variety you