Analyzing the Impact of Family Based Treatment (FBT) on Youth Experiencing Avoidant/Resistant Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
Background Avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) was classified as a novel eating disorder (ED) in the DSM-5. Prior to that, any severe notion of picky eating in children was categorized as EDNOS, a DSM-IV notation that referred to any ED that was not anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa (Fisher et al., 2011). What patients meeting this classification had in common was no significant fear of weight gain or poor sense of body image, but, instead displayed a lack of interest in eating, expressed a sensory resistance, or feared physical consequences of eating, like choking or vomiting (Pinhas et al, 2016). In some instances, patients may not be underweight but likely lack in nutritional health (Nicely et al. 2014). Including ARFID as its own DSM-5 classification “improved clinical utility and captured a population of young people who had an eating disorder” (Fisher et al, 2011, p. 50) that previously was too undefined to warrant attention. The population ...