It’s normal for infants and young children to go through brief phases where they restrict the foods they eat, and to reject new foods when they first encounter them. Some food selectiveness is normal for children and can be sign of growing autonomy. 

In these situations, parents should use gentle encouragement and exposure to encourage healthy eating habits.

However, food restriction and avoidance becomes a problem when it starts to impact a child’s everyday life and well-being. This might be because they can’t get the nutrients they need from the selection of foods they eat, or they eat too little food to receive the nourishment they require. This kind of selectiveness requires professional support and may lead to a diagnosis of ARFID.

While ARFID and anorexia can both lead to weight loss, they involve different core processes and require different treatments. ARFID tends to be underpinned by anxieties involving eating and aversions to certain types of foods. 

Unlike those with anorexia nervosa, teens with ARFID don’t restrict their food intake to change their body shape or weight or engage in disordered eating behaviours such as calorie counting, over-exercising or other methods of purging.

Autistic young people often have eating patterns that resemble those of ARFID. They may experience heightened sensitivity to food texture and difficulty adjusting to changing eating routines or newly introduced foods. 

When these traits start to seriously impact an autistic person’s daily life and well-being, they may also receive a diagnosis of ARFID. ARFID diagnoses are more common in autistic than non-autistic young people.