Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) Signs & Symptoms

Learn about the signs and symptoms of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), a little-known and often misunderstood eating disorder.

Symptoms of ARFID vary widely, and may evolve with the developmental context of the individual (especially in children and adolescents).

Types and symptoms of ARFID include:

Avoidant: Patients who only accept a limited diet in relation to sensory features (sensory sensitivity); sensory aversion; sensory over-stimulation

Aversive: Individuals whose food refusal is related to aversive or fear-based experiences (phobic avoidance) including choking, nausea, vomiting, pain and/or swallowing

Restrictive: Individuals who do not eat enough and show little interest in feeding or eating (low appetite); extreme pickiness; distractible and forgetful

ARFID “Plus”: Individuals with avoidant, aversive, or restrictive types of ARFID presentations who begin to develop features of anorexia nervosa, including concerns about body weight and size, fear of weight gain, negativity about fatness, negative body image without body image distortion and preference for less calorically-dense foods

Adult ARFID: Individuals with avoidant, aversive, or restrictive types of ARFID presentations beyond childhood; may have had similar symptoms since childhood including selective or extremely picky eating, food peculiarities, texture, color or taste aversions related to food.

[childrenstorieswithcarina]

I'm 26 and have been dealing with this my whole life. I thought I was insane until I researched arfid

[sparklefluff]

"they just lack the drive to eat", that is me. I just don't feel motivated to eat.

[lionelheisler]

I feel like I cannot properly explain how unappealing food in general is to me at this point. My appetite seems inherently linked with my anxiety. It makes you feel like you're broken because "Why can everyone else eat normally, and I can't?"
I get hungry and it turns into nausea, and I eat and feel sick as well.. I have to force myself to get food down, even on days where I haven't eaten for the whole entire day before that meal. Food waste from uneaten meals always makes me feel guilty.
I just wish I could get an actual diagnosis. I'm long overdue for therapy.

[whspr]

i’m crying. i just found out about this eating disorder today. i’ve never heard it before, only things like anorexia, which I knew for sure that I didn’t have, so I just classified myself as a picky eater. My parents have always called me that. It’s hard for me to eat healthy. Fruits and vegetables taste, look, smell... just disgusting. Sometimes I try new food and I end up gagging or vomiting, so I am scared of trying new food. I have to eat vitamins for nutrition. And I always feel bad that I’m not eating healthy. I only eat specific foods, like Mac and cheese, chips, chicken, and other things.. I struggle eating with other people because I hate the food they eat. I don’t even eat dinner with my parents. And I’ve always been self aware of it all, which made me feel bad about myself and embarrassed and oh my gosh this just changed the way I saw myself. I always thought there was something wrong with me. I am definitely telling my parents about this, I need help.

[ywsn]

My parents would tell me im really picky when it comes to food and they would tell bad things about it.. but i know its just hard for them to make me healthy

[throwaway]

i hate how this ED never gets taken seriously. you see tv shows like freaky eaters and they all get laughed at.

[DanaMac]

I’m 45 and suffered with this all my life! So glad it’s now being recognized. School camps were soooo hard!

[DanielleYvonne]

Ive always felt eating, cooking, grocery shopping was such a chore! 3 times a day?? Who has time for that? I don’t want to make time to eat or cook. I just wanna scarf something down real quick to suppress the hunger. I don’t wanna think about it so i eat the same types of simple meals over and over. Never finish a plate. Being too full of food makes me uncomfortable.

I recently got food poisoning and couldn’t eat or hold anything down for 4 days. I lost weight because of it and now I’m struggling to put it back on because of my avoidance of food. Ppl notice and are commenting but i wish they wouldn’t.

Textures aren’t my problem. Ive summed it up to laziness most the time but my stomach physically doesn’t like too much in there. Learning more about arfid has been validating. “Lack of drive to eat”. Definitely my problem.

[icchasaki]

What’s really frustrating is that I love food, but so many things make me feel nauseous because of sensory issues that it’s so difficult to eat and almost impossible to eat healthily or consistently. And if I get too hungry that also makes me nauseous and it gets harder and harder to eat.
So I basically spend most of my day thinking about food to try and catch every little moment when I can grab a few bites of something, and live off of tons of tiny meals throughout the day.
It sucks.

[zzzgeorge]

i'm 16 and never ate a fruit or a vegetable since i was 4 because of how they taste, the texture they have and.. their color. every time someone ate them next to me and i heard the sound i felt a very uncomfortable feeling on my skin, a lot of doctors said i have nothing in 2006-2007 but at that time ARFID wasn't. Therefore till today i don't actually know if i have it or not. something for sure though is.. that i'm not eating a fruit or a vegetable anytime soon.

[suzuuuuii]

i definitely have this. i’m currently 13. at the ripe age of 12 i was being called anorexic by my older cousin who was studying psychology. i knew this wasn’t right, because i had no body image issues. my whole life, i’ve been called a picky eater. but i always felt like it was something more than that. taste, texture, they give me sensory issues. i cant physically swallow a food that tastes bad or feels bad in the mouth, my literal throat tightens because of it; making it hard to swallow. i’ve had some experiences where i gagged when i tried eating something that tasted bad, which resulted in me having a fear of gagging, thus having a fear of trying new foods. i only have a couple of safe foods, but the problem is, most of them are unhealthy. i have to take vitamins because i don’t get enough nutrients. i eat 1 meal a day, or sometimes no meal at all. i’m just 13. i need food to grow and to function properly. i come from a very conservative family who doesn’t believe in disorders, and just call me picky and force me to eat anything. i need help. i want help. i cant keep suffering like this. it’s a battle i have to fight every single day.

[i.anonymoususer.i]

Thank you for posting this. I am positive that I have this disorder and I have a *huge* fear of vomiting. I think I've had this for a while and I've had the fear of vomiting for years. If something doesn't look right to me, it'll make me think it could make me vomit. ^^;

[salemlamminen]

I've known I've had this for years, and I was just finally diagnosed correctly. I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa but I knew that diagnosis didn't fit because I didn't have the body image issue. I did research on ARFID and I knew that was exactly my issue. I went to treatment for mental health and they asked me if I had ever heard of ARFID. a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders that had been there for years, finally someone who believed me and knew what was going on, and even suggested the disorder before I mentioned anything other than my symptoms. this video is very well done and definitely depicts lots of the symptoms people with ARFID deal with every day. Thank you.

[gloomiibear]

I'm 24, and the texture of fruits and veggies has always given me an instant response. I can't get these things down without gagging profusely. I want to eat healthier, but it's damn hard when I'm afraid of most healthy foods. I have no clue how to overcome this. I always thought I was just overreacting, but this makes me feel a bit more valid with my struggle.

[katyabank]

I always thought I was weird and crazy for not eating food because I was scared of throwing up, turns out its just ARFID and I've actually never felt better knowing that it's something I can fix and help

[angrysocks]

i’m 13, i’ve had it since i was 8...
been suicidal for most of those years. thought there was no one like me.
now, i met people in the comments and i feel a small bit of hope. it will only better from here. let’s hope!

[nickcutting]

Im now 51 and have had this all my life, would love nothing more than to eat normal food but the taste, look and smell of most food makes me wretch

[adri-qqkz]

To think this issue that Ive been struggling with for the last 2 years actually has a name shocks me yet I’m relieved...

[danieljferguson]

When I was around 10, I had a choking scare, which caused me to avoid certain foods for a few years. Anytime I ate solid foods, it always made me gag, and I ended up replacing a lot of things with protein shakes. I lost a lot of weight and had very little energy. I don't know if what I had was ARFID, but hearing about it a few years ago gave me a bit of peace with the whole experience.

[ivychicken]

I’m not sure if I have this due to some weight requirements etc that I’ve learned about but I really relate. These issues have actually gotten worse as I’ve got older. It’s so frustrating because I have no clue what it is. I will be hungry but I physically just cannot get myself to eat. My brain won’t let me. If I try to eat something that I’m not ‘craving’ I can’t even swallow it. I eat a few specific things and even have issues with food ‘obsessions’. Once I finally find another thing I like I become obsessed with it and will crave it constantly. Some of the issues are sensory related too. I’m just so lost.