For Eating Disorder Awareness Week this year, I firstly wanted to link back to the original post I made on ARFID, which is an eating disorder that personally affects me, and is finally getting more attention (it was only officially recognised by the ICD 11 (the EU’s equivalent to the DSM/list of mental health conditions) in 2022)! It’s suggested that, in the UK, it affects about 10% of adults with eating disorders, and between 12.5 and 33% of autistic individuals struggle with it. It was actually my second ever post on this blog, and you can find it HERE.
In the post, I introduced some of the common characteristics of ARFID, which I put into three categories:

1. Difficulties understanding what your body is saying, for example:

• Not getting hunger cues
• Anxiety around whether or not it will make you ill
• Getting distracted and forgetting to eat

2. Difficulties managing the environment, for example:

• Feeling too cold or too hot to eat
• Feeling too self conscious to eat due to social anxiety
• Feeling overwhelmed by noises around you to eat

3. Difficulties with the food itself:

• Only being able to eat food that is a certain colour or shape
• Only being able to cope with certain textures
• The flavours of food being strong and overwhelming.

But anyway, for 2024, I want to just describe some of my personal experiences of ARFID. These are just some of the ways my ARFID presents itself, but I hope that others may relate to them, and find comfort in knowing they are not alone in their struggles!

1. I find hot food or food that melts really stressful. I need my food to stay the same temperature so if it’s hot I have to keep remicrowaving it and get worried as soon as it starts cooling down, and if I have ice cream I like it really hard and will usually freeze it once served in a bowl, so that it stays colder. I eat my toast cold to avoid stress.
2. I like certain textures and find them easier to eat. I often crave these textures and feel stressed if I don’t have them. I particularly like squidgy, thick, pudding like textures, such as thick yogurt or mousses, mushy cereal, mushy peas, and mash, and I also really like cold, crunchy things, like very crunchy pears and cucumber. I also like spongey things like mushrooms, aubergine, bread, brioche, crumpets.
3. I can’t tell when I’m hungry or thirsty. My family and friends sometimes call me a camel as, since my doctor told me to drink a bottle of water at every meal when I was a child and didn’t drink enough, I tend to chug a whole bottle in one go! I also frequently forget to eat or delay eating because I’m busy, and just don’t realise I’m hungry, even though my body needs the energy.
4. I am very sensitive to the environment – I struggle with temperature regulation and feeling comfortable in clothing, and if I don’t feel okay, I don’t feel like eating.
5. I like a lot of plain foods. I love bread, plain yogurt, plain cereal. I sometimes enjoy strong flavours, but often need a break from that intensity and to have plainer foods after, or I will be put off eating completely.

Do you relate to any of these?
Do you have any difficulties around food yourself?