A nervous system issue.
People wondered why I carried around tupperware of pasta with pesto everywhere I went with my son. School friends’ parties, on the plane, days out.
Friends who went to the effort of making fresh pesto and fusilli didn’t understand how he rejected it, wouldn’t touch anything sweet and screamed when approached with any other food. Because if it wasn’t the store made brand, even if he was hungry – he couldn’t eat. He could and did starve himself. At school mealtimes he sat with his back to the table whilst the other children ate.
Some thought it was bad parenting, even therapists, and I felt judged. I’d find the freshest, best ingredients, cook and present meals with love and he rejected them every single time. He’d see me coming with a plate or bowl and start screaming. Mealtimes became extremely stressful. Going out anywhere was a huge challenge.
If your child has ARFID you will recognise this. Carting packets of “safe foods” abroad in case they aren’t available because you don’t want your child to starve. It’s not simply “picky eating” or the food not being tasty.
Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. Introduced in 2013 – so a fairly new diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is extremely distressing for families and patients. Mealtimes for parents cooking and having to cater to everyone, ensuring your child gets enough nutrition, planning holidays – in fact something that is meant to be social and pleasurable – eating, becomes something to dread.
From neurodevelopmental differences to a choking incident, sensory issues and vomiting bugs. The causes can be manifold. The latter – sensory issues and vomiting bugs left my son with very few safe foods. And the safe foods, predominantly carbohydrates such as pasta and breadsticks, provided predictability and safety but little nutritional diversity. Whilst they kept him fed, they did little to support healthy blood sugar regulation, microbiome diversity or the gut-brain axis. (Cryan et al 2019). These factors, alongside sensory sensitivities and learned safety patterns, can all influence nervous system regulation.
What looks from the outside like stubbornness, lack of willpower or “fussiness” is often a complex interaction between the nervous system, sensory processing, learned safety patterns, the gut and the brain.
Once I started to view what was happening through a nervous system lens I found a way to help him. For his age at the time, there was no reasoning, or explaining. He was non verbal, I didn’t know if he could hear properly and he had a whole host of other challenges.
The objective was to create a greater sense of safety in his body. And I did this through craniosacral therapy.
Craniosacral therapy is a gentle hands-on therapy that works with the nervous system and the body’s natural capacity to regulate itself. Rather than focusing on the food it aims to help the body to regulate so it’s not stuck in hypervigilance.
As my son’s nervous system became more regulated, I began to notice subtle changes. He became calmer around food. Less reactive. More willing to tolerate unfamiliar foods on the table. More curious. There was no magic wand moment where he suddenly ate everything in sight. It was a gradual process of his world becoming bigger.
In addition to this, as all his other symptoms improved and he could hear and understand I started to introduce incentives, for even licking a new food. Then a small bite of a new food. Then a portion of that food. Progress was measured in millimeters not miles.
From a craniosacral perspective, we are not forcing change. We are supporting the body to move from protection into safety. When a child no longer feels under threat, their capacity for exploration naturally increases. The same nervous system that once screamed “danger” at the sight of a new food can begin to ask, “Maybe this is safe.”
Today, I sometimes forget that the little boy who once survived on a handful of safe foods is now a joy to eat out with. Watching him enjoy different flavours, textures and cuisines is something I once wondered if I would ever experience.
Ultimately, when I stopped focusing on the symptoms and started supporting the nervous system underneath them, everything began to change. So if you have a young child with ARFID, there is hope.
Reference: Cryan JF, O’Riordan KJ, Cowan CSM, Sandhu KV, Bastiaanssen TFS, Boehme M, Codagnone MG, Cussotto S, Fulling C, Golubeva AV, Guzzetta KE, Jaggar M, Long-Smith CM, Lyte JM, Martin JA, Molinero-Perez A, Moloney G, Morelli E, Morillas E, O’Connor R, Cruz-Pereira JS, Peterson VL, Rea K, Ritz NL, Sherwin E, Spichak S, Teichman EM, van de Wouw M, Ventura-Silva AP, Wallace-Fitzsimons SE, Hyland N, Clarke G, Dinan TG. The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis. Physiol Rev. 2019 Oct 1;99(4):1877-2013. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00018.2018. PMID: 31460832.
Raj lehl 