Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
Originally posted on my Substack.
When my son was 18 months old, he ate five foods. When new foods entered his mouth, he gagged.
My name is Mary, and I’m a worried mom.
At 5 years old, he ate cucumbers, carrots, and swirly pasta with butter. The same safe foods over and over again. Anything new made him gag.
At 9 years old, he tried steak and actually liked it, but he still gagged whenever new foods entered his mouth. The same five safe foods had carried us through years of meals, holidays, birthday parties, restaurants, and school lunches.
Now he’s older. He loves lime rice with cilantro, but only if the cilantro is cooked down enough. Steak is still hit or miss. The safe foods are still largely the same foods we’ve relied on for years. And he still gags when trying something new.
I’m a worried mom who works nonstop. Oh, and by the way, I’m also a chef and nutritionist.
For a very long time, I didn’t know what Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder was. When my child was young, the term wasn’t commonly used or understood.
Years ago, I worked on a collaborative team with a doctor, psychologist, physical therapist, and occupational therapist. For a short time, I was the nutritionist on the team. I went into homes and supported families with children who had eating challenges. My job was to help however I could.
I understood professionally that eating challenges could be extreme. I knew that patience, slow introductions, and trust could make a difference.
But helping families as a professional and living it as a mother are two completely different things.
I remember the first time I felt truly helpless as a mom, and I remember the most recent time too.
The first time was when my son had chicken pox around 18 months old. I made him chicken soup and pureed it smooth because it had always been his favorite food. He wouldn’t eat it. He couldn’t eat it. One day his safe food simply disappeared.
That’s the part people don’t always understand. Foods are constantly shifting for him. Something can feel safe one day and impossible the next.
There’s a deep sadness when food doesn’t look right to him, because he desperately wants to eat. He wants to enjoy food. But the intense gagging stops him.
We work with a brilliant occupational feeding therapist, Cheryl Ecker. She has been my rock through all of this.
I help families all the time who have children with eating challenges. In my cooking school, I see it every day. But supporting my own child has changed everything.
To him, I’m not the chef. I’m not the nutritionist. I’m not the specialist.
I’m just Mom.
What I bring to the table now is patience, love, understanding, and thanks to ARFID Andrew, hope.
Andrew was introduced to me through a friend. We were talking about my son’s struggles with food when she asked, “Do you know about ARFID Andrew?”
I immediately went to Instagram and started watching his videos.
I absolutely devoured his content.
Here was one of the bravest people I had ever seen, willing to share his journey publicly and expose himself gagging over and over again to raise awareness and help others feel less alone.
As I watched his videos, I found myself laugh-crying. He smiled through so many difficult moments. He laughed during these epic food battles in a way that somehow made them feel lighter and more hopeful.
I reached out to Andrew as a mother, thanking him profusely for his courage and vulnerability, because he gave me something I desperately needed: hope.
He responded immediately and was just as gracious in Instagram DMs as he is in his videos.
Eventually, we made plans to collaborate on content together.
Over the course of five hours, I watched firsthand as he endured “enemy foods” again and again. I listened to his story, and so many of his experiences mirrored what I see in my own son.
I’m very private about my children because I believe it should always be their choice whether they appear on social media.
My son and I have had long conversations about Andrew and his bravery. When we decided to collaborate and create videos to raise awareness, my son told me I could share that I am a mother raising a child with ARFID.
My hope is that these videos find the families who need them most.
Are you a parent to a child with Arfid’s? Do you know anyone with Arfid’s? What is their safe foods? I’m here, I’ll listen, we can support each other.
