A Marriage & Family Therapist’s Thoughts on the Recent Buzz About ARFID

“Is this a real thing??” pops up on my phone screen as I’m pulling out of the Starbucks drive-thru. I swipe to open the “Chatham Squad” group thread with my childhood best friends and their partners, and see a screenshot of a recent article from The Cut. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen ARFID making the rounds on social media—lately, the spotlight seems to be on this diagnosis. Even my Bravo-stan friends told me it came up on The Real Housewives.

“Yes, def a real thing… pretty complicated though. Idk what’s up with this description,” I reply.

ARFID stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It’s technically classified as an eating disorder, but at its core, it often has a lot more to do with anxiety. People with ARFID aren’t avoiding food to lose weight or change their body—they might have extreme sensitivity to textures or smells, no real interest in eating, or a fear of things like choking or throwing up. As you can imagine, over time this can lead to nutritional deficiencies or impact daily life in pretty big ways (American Psychiatric Association, 2022).

This is an especially interesting topic for me as a Marriage & Family Therapist (MFT), because in our field, we look at the whole system—not just the individual. If I were seeing one of the families mentioned in the article as a client, I wouldn’t only be focused on the child struggling with ARFID. I’d be exploring the environment around them: the relationships between the parents, how each parent interacts with the child, dynamics with siblings, and the overall emotional climate in the home. No child lives in a vacuum, and involving the people who surround and care about them is essential for creating lasting change.

What many people don’t realize is just how important family dynamics are in eating disorder treatment—and how central MFTs can be in that process. Research consistently shows that including the family in treatment, especially for children and teens, leads to better outcomes. For example, Family-Based Treatment (FBT), which empowers parents to take an active role in helping their child recover, is one of the most effective approaches for youth with eating disorders (Lock & Le Grange, 2013). As MFTs, we’re trained to spot patterns in how families communicate, cope, and support each other—and we use that insight to help the whole system heal, not just the identified client.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the narrative around feeding kids has changed in the age of social media. I personally had a full-on meltdown when my daughter rejected yet another flavor of Cerebelly pouch two years ago. “But she needs to eat these healthy ones!” I sobbed to my husband (who was very confused). Between my own experience and my clinical training in Perinatal Mental Health—which includes a lot of work with postpartum anxiety and OCD—I’ve started to view popular accounts like Solid Starts or Kids Eat in Color with a more critical eye. No shade—they offer some great ideas, and those Solid Starts photo wheels are chef’s kiss.

HOWEVER, at the end of the day, we actually have very little control over what our children put in their mouths. My go-to philosophy follows the work of feeding expert Ellyn Satter, which aligns with Dr. Becky Kennedy’s concept of “family jobs”: the parent’s job is to provide the food; the child’s job is to decide what (or if) they eat. It sounds so simple, but it’s not. I’m tired of the narrative that says if moms just worked harder—like cutting cucumbers into tiny star shapes—then their kid would magically love vegetables. Sure, maybe it helps them try it, but whether or not they actually eat it? That’s up to them. And it’s not a pass/fail test of parenting. (Though let’s be real, watching that lovingly carved cucumber star get chucked to the floor does feel like a gut punch.)

We millennial parents are a passionate, hard-working bunch. We research like it’s our job, and we’re determined to raise emotionally and physically healthy kids. That’s so valid. But I also find myself wondering—what’s the hidden cost of that perfectionism? And who’s bearing the brunt of it—us, or our kids?

And now for the disclaimer: This is a blog post, not a peer-reviewed research article. I don’t know if the rise in parenting pressure and food-related anxiety is contributing to an increase in ARFID diagnoses. It’s probably a combination of things—greater awareness, better understanding, and growing acceptance of the diagnosis. But the therapist in me has been thinking about the families in The Cut piece all week, and my heart really goes out to them.

What are your thoughts on parenting and feeding culture right now? Do you like it, hate it, ignore it?

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787

Lock, J., & Le Grange, D. (2013). Treatment manual for anorexia nervosa: A family-based approach (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.