Is this Picky Eating or ARFID? with Rosan Meyer, PhD, RD

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Rosan Meyer (3m 14s):

I'm appalled when I get a six month old refer to me with a referral and saying this child has ait. That's not possible. We've missed something. You and me both know the child is not born with ait. If your child is below two and a half, three years of age, it's unlikely your child has got ait. It's likely your child has got normal picky eater.

Katie Ferraro (3m 35s):

Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby-Led Weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give you baby a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led Weaning. I'm not sure if this is social media doing its dirty work again or a hot topic or trend in parenting groups, but for whatever reason I've definitely seen an uptick in interest in as well as questions about, so ARFID stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder and ARFID is a type of eating disorder.

Katie Ferraro (4m 21s):

I'll have parents who have a baby who's not entirely into let's say broccoli, okay? They won't touch the broccoli or touch the green foods and the baby's eating less food then the parents would otherwise anticipate. So now they're online and they're Googling pick eating and babies and then they get led down a rabbit hole and they discover ARFID and now they're like, oh my gosh, my baby has ARFID. My guest today is here to tell you that your baby does not have ARFID. My guest is Rosan Meyer, she's a PhD dietitian and an internationally renowned expert in pediatric nutrition. Roan is a nutrition professor at the University of Winchester in the United Kingdom. She's a specialist in food allergy, energy expenditure, feeding difficulties and faltering growth. So I'm like all of the kind of sad negative stuff that I know you guys all worry about, but she is such a wealth of information.

Katie Ferraro (5m 7s):

I love any opportunity I have to chat with her. And so when I was asking around about who to interview about have ARFID and what it is and what it isn't, everyone's like you gotta have Rosan Meyer on. She was gracious enough to do this interview. Rosa's been on the podcast previously In episode one 10 we talked about catch Up Weight and why starting solid foods early will not help your baby gain weight. She was also back on in episode 266 where we talked about Infant Weight, Loss, what to do when the doctor says your baby is not gaining weight. And Roan is really known. She's just such a wonderful way of interpreting some kind of complicated data, particularly growth charts and centiles. And if you're worried about weight loss, definitely check out some of her resources. She's online at rosan-paediatricdietitian.com and that's spelled the British English way Paed.

Katie Ferraro (5m 52s):

She's also on Instagram at Roan pediatric dietitian. I'll link to all of the resources that she mentions because the vast majority of you listening, I made this episode so you're like, oh my gosh, my baby does not have ARFID. This is what typically developing children will go through and Roan will teach a little bit about typically developing versus ARFID and AR talks about late onset ARFID and when you really do want to get worried and if you need resources, she has some wonderful ones for you. They will all be on the show notes for this episode. You can find that at blwpodcast.com. Just search Rosan Meyer, Meyer. And if you enjoy listening to these interviews with other credentialed feeding experts, I would really encourage you to follow this podcast. I do two new episodes every week.

Katie Ferraro (6m 33s):

I do a mini solo training episode each Monday and every Thursday is a longer interview style episode like this one with Rosan Meyer. So with no further ado, I wanna introduce you and welcome back Rosan Meyer who's gonna be talking about whether or not this is picky eating or ARFID.

Rosan Meyer (6m 51s):

Hey Katie, it's always a pleasure and it's always a pleasure that you find these topics that I love as well to talk about.

Katie Ferraro (6m 58s):

Well this one has been popping up. So parents, I think they'll think their babies are picky and we know that babies don't exhibit food preferences, but they'll say, no, I have a picky eater. I know it is. And then they'll hop online and then they'll learn about ARFID and they'll be like, Katie, does my baby have AIT? And it's like, I believe it's impossible for a baby to have it, but this is not my zone of genius or my area of expertise, but it is for Rosan Meyer. So thank you for coming on to talk about ait. Let's start out with what is ARFID.

Rosan Meyer (7m 24s):

That's an easy one for me to answer because AIT in fact has a DSM five criteria. Now what is the DSM five criteria? It is in fact a diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder. Okay, so what does that mean? It means thatit is an eating disorder. It falls under the, a similar broad spectrum of anorexia, diosa, bulimia nervosa. So that means there is a very specific criteria and the criteria has four categories. And you can't be diagnosed with Alfred unless you meet those four criteria. And the first criteria is related to an aversion to eating that might be sensory or a lack of appetite with one of the following.

Rosan Meyer (8m 11s):

So that's only category one weight loss is the first one. The second one is that it is impacting on the child's psychological wellbeing or the way they interact. For example, the child cannot eat with other children at the table because the smell of food is too much. The third criteria is they have a vitamin or mineral deficiency. Fourth criteria is they're dependent on antral feeding or oral nutritional supplements. I'm not talking about vitamin or mineral drops as a supplement. I'm talking about you know those specialist drinks that you get for older children. That's only the first category.

Rosan Meyer (8m 53s):

The second category is that the current intake is not related to any specific dietary requirements in the family or lack of food. So for example, the family are not believers in a certain, for example, only want to have plants that are growing under the ground and will not have anything else that is above the ground. You get those type of beliefs and that is the reason why the child's eating is so limited or food insecurity. Third criteria is that the child's current eating is not better explained by a concomitant mental disorder or by medical diagnosis.

Rosan Meyer (9m 37s):

That is a really tough one. That means, for example, a child that has autism can exhibit symptoms that are similar to Alfred but might not have offered so that that needs to be assessed. My allergic children might be vomiting all the time and actually don't want the food because they're scared of vomiting. So that's also not offered, that's fair of eating because of the vomiting. And the last one, you need to have an erection of OSA and bulimia as an eating disorder ruled out. So you can see it's a complex criteria and only children that meet that criteria can be having the diagnosis of Alfred.

Rosan Meyer (10m 20s):

Now as a dietitian, you and me can't make that diagnosis. It's a mental health disorder.

Katie Ferraro (10m 26s):

Who makes the diagnosis?

Rosan Meyer (10m 30s):

Psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians that have had mental health training.

Katie Ferraro (10m 33s):

So what do you say to parents who think their babies are picky? They hop online, they discover AIT and they're like, Katie, I know my baby has AIT because they, if going through the four criteria, my baby has some sort of, they always talk about sensory, he doesn't like to touch the broccoli and then his intake is less than the mom would think it would be. And I don't have another medical underlying disorder and maybe this is the disordered eating. And so they put those four things together and they're like, my baby has ARFID. How old would one have to be to be diagnosed with this? Is it true that babies can't have ait? And what do you say to parents who are like, Hey, I tick all four of those boxes for this child.

Rosan Meyer (11m 8s):

So we would never make a diagnosis of Alfred before two and a half, three years of age. Why is that? And Katie, I'm going to take the example you've just given me. My baby doesn't like broccoli and doesn't like touching food. You know, that can be any toddler that kind of go, goes through the normal neophobic kind of disgust response with green veggies for example, or exerting their own autonomy. I want to be eating independently and it might be a mom that says, my child didn't want to eat independently. Now does the ceiling of the mouth pushing food away that's not have ARFID. So the reason we don't make a diagnosis before two and a half, three years of age is I, I think threefold.

Rosan Meyer (11m 53s):

The first reason is you get lots of medical reasons why children may not eat reflux food allergies. You get children that have developmental delay. So a child first needs to have those things diagnosed or ruled out or have outgrown it. Second reason would be that you have the normal toddlerhood feeding, which I think you and me kind of touched on it before, picky eating, which often is called picky eating where I'd spit that food out or it might be my child's ate broccoli two weeks ago. Now all green veggies, they go, yucky, don't like that. That is not a Alfred. And the the third reason we don't do it at that stage is because you get this autonomous behavior that a toddler wants.

Rosan Meyer (12m 38s):

I don't want that, I don't want to eat that. I wanna push it away. I throw that out. That's again noted. But what ised, and I'm sure you wondering to all of the listeners to saying, okay, but Roseanne, so you've just told me my child who's just doesn't want to have broccoli, doesn't wanna have green, is not Alfred. So typically children with Alfred only have four to 10 different foods that they eat. And I mean that's all they they eat. They will not eat anything different to that. Secondly, they're brand specific, so it has to be a specific brand that they have the bread from.

Rosan Meyer (13m 19s):

If the bread doesn't come from that brand, they will not eat on visualization. They will say to you, that bread looks different. It has a spot that was not there yesterday. I don't like it pre, it's got a spot. And the other thing is it causes anxiety, huge anxiety.

Katie Ferraro (13m 36s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

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Katie Ferraro (15m 12s):

Can you talk about the history of the term ARFID? Was it previously called extreme picky eating and is that maybe where some of this confusion in parents are coming up? 'cause they start Googling really bad picky eating and then they jump to the conclusion of, oh my baby has ait.

Rosan Meyer (15m 25s):

No, it's, it's a great question. It's a bit more complicated than that. So the, the diagnosis is not that old, it's 11 years old. So was only started developed in 2013 and it didn't come from extreme picky eating because there was a lot of different, different terminology related to food avoidance. There were lots of terminologies thrown around. It was really coming from more the obser observation that there are children that don't fall into the normal picky eating, which we think spitting out food, not wanting green vegetables, eating only certain allies that in fact have anxiety around eating.

Rosan Meyer (16m 8s):

So, and I, I want to reinforce this anxiety, Katie, which you don't see with picky eating. And what I mean by that, it's a child that really cannot be around you eating, for example, a plate of pasta with yummy food on there that you identify as yummy. But the food, the, the smell, the visualization, everything actually is not only a disgust response but it's an anxiety response. So they cannot be around there.

Katie Ferraro (16m 40s):

You mentioned before the normal neophobic disgust with veggies and I want to touch on that because picky eating is developmentally appropriate. Picky eating is not a problem to be fixed and your child will start to demonstrate as they get a little bit older, this autonomous behavior that you are describing, Roan, could you tell parents what to expect? Especially as we cross over into the second year of life, parents would be like, Katie, I had a baby that ate everything they did ate a 100 foods from your a 100 First Foods list and now they're one or one and a half and they don't want to eat some of the foods that they used to eat and that's typical but parents think they're doing a bad job. So could you explain what that normal, I love it. Neophobic disgust with foods is all about yeah,

Rosan Meyer (17m 21s):

It's a we it's and it's literally they have a disgust response. So the the first thing first that parents need to remember that it's not their fault. You know it's a normal developmental progression and I'm sure you know that as well. The, the green I hate green foods has also a background which is thought to be related to the hunter-gatherer time because the time when child starts walking. So it's supposed to be protective to protect them of having green poisonous plants. So it's to a certain extent, as you know, all toddlers go through that. Some of them more severe, some of them not as severe.

Rosan Meyer (18m 1s):

So the going through, I don't like it that looks yucky is normal. They might have yesterday loved it and today it's yucky. So that is also quite normal. The second aspect to it is that their appetite today might be great and tomorrow as you know can be I just don't feel like eating and where the parents kind of going, but yesterday they ate really well. Why is it that they don't eat well today? So the changes in appetite and not wanting it. And the third one is pushing the boundaries to say okay, I had this yesterday and today I'm taking it from my plate and I'm looking at and going, don't want that, you know, doesn't look nice, don't want that.

Rosan Meyer (18m 49s):

That's also very normal and very normal. You, I'm sure you've seen it with your children as well, that many, there are variations in this and some of them go through it and just have small amounts of, I don't like broccoli or don't like pea and others all green veggies. But often they like fruit or they cry, crispy beige brown foods. So that's very much the range of normality that I see in toddlers.

Katie Ferraro (19m 15s):

Can you talk a little bit about nutritional concerns when a child is older and is demonstrating all of these criteria and does get a diagnosis of ARFID, what are the potential nutritional and health and growth and developmental impacts long-term? Because obviously it's something parents are worried about in the day to day, but we want to encourage them to seek treatment so that we can help get that child back on track developmentally and nutritionally.

Rosan Meyer (19m 38s):

Absolutely. So before we, we come to ARFID, I just wanted to say, I mean any child that cuts out whole food groups would be in theory on a nutritional risk. And I would always say if they're cutting out food groups, ideally have a discussion with a, a pediatric dietitian because often it's not growth that it's a concern but it might be iron or it might be another micronutrients when we come into it and and if you think about children or if we take the ome aversive eating where you have picky eating which is normal, then a child that kind of has a more severe aversive eating where they avoid whole food categories and thenit is the severest, the nutritional concerns are number one growth.

Rosan Meyer (20m 22s):

So if you can imagine that you only have let's say six to 10 different foods and by chance those six to 10 foods are primarily carbohydrates and no protein. And by the way, that's very common. They have primarily carbohydrates then growth is the first concern. Micronutrient deficiencies, they have the whole spectrum of deficiencies and I've seen not only iron deficiency, I've seen the severest versions of B12 zinc vitamin A. And so it is not just an iron deficiency or vitamin deficiency, it's really the other deficiencies. And I think what we see more with Alfred is that you see the clinical manifestations of that, for example eyesight that starts to be re reduced as a result of a vitamin A deficiency as a result of a B12 deficiency for example.

Katie Ferraro (21m 17s):

Roan, what are the common causes or risk factors associated with have ARFID and is there a genetic or a familiar component here?

Rosan Meyer (21m 24s):

That's a great question Katie and and I first want to say to everybody here, you have to remember that from a scientific perspective, this is a young diagnosis. Okay, so I'm going to give you a bit of hypothesis where we are thinking the origins are. So I think we all know feeding difficulties has got a genetic background. So we see it in families. In any case, there is a wonderful twin study that came about two years ago the way they've looked at genetic assessments looking at Alfred. And yes there is also a link, a genetic link with Alfred. Now you have to remember though, the problem here is retrospectively for those parents, the diagnostic criteria for offered for those parents did not exist.

Rosan Meyer (22m 9s):

So it's a retrospective assessment but we suspect that that's good data and there is a genetic link. Then there are other triggers. First one we do see children that have had medical diagnosis in particular gastrointestinal diagnosis and food allergy. So for example, we've spoken in the past a little bit of FPIES food, Protein, Induced, Enterocolitis, Syndrome where the hallmark symptom is acute violent vomiting. So it's almost a traumatic event where there is the fear of providing foods and widening the variety of foods because of the fear of vomiting and the child has a traumatic event.

Rosan Meyer (22m 51s):

So we see more offered in the population are being documented with F pie. So we, and especially if they don't get the right advice, the second group of children that we see as a risk factor, those without any medical underlying diagnosis but where for some reason an early childhood let's between six months and one year feeding was disrupted, you know they didn't manage to progress with textures and tastes and they have lots of sensory issues and you can see by 18 months those sensory issues still continue. Then of course you'll need to rule out autism, whether autism is at the heart of it or any other kind of similar disorder.

Rosan Meyer (23m 33s):

And we do seem to have a third group and that's not the group likely that Katie you'd be exposed to. We have a late onset of have ARFID group, they are 9, 10, 11 years of age and that group we are not quite sure why we suddenly start seeing them becoming extremely limited in their dietary intake. 'cause many of them we don't see a traumatic event beforehand. But I would say to any parents that if they said to me my child is vomiting and having abdominal discomfort for any feeding difficulties, that would be a trigger and you want to be seeing somebody and and treating that early and if by one year of age and after that child still can't mess and touch texts, you really want to have that reviewed and made sure that they from a sensory perspective addressed.

Katie Ferraro (24m 27s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

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Katie Ferraro (25m 7s):

I wanted to talk a little bit more about this late onset and I'm actually gonna read you a text from a friend not saying the name of the child, but she says, hi Katie. Quick question. Do you know of any registered dietitians, psychologists or GI MDs who might specialize in ARFID? We have been having issues with name of child that has gotten a lot worse and now the child's percentile of weight is too low. Child says they're not hungry, so doesn't want to eat. The pediatrician said that when you don't eat and you're starving, You don't feel hungry. The child has a lot of anxiety, we need help. He's 10.

Rosan Meyer (25m 37s):

So I, at the beginning of our discussion sent, the biggest and most important aspect to remember is the anxiety that the children have. And the biggest mistake that many healthcare professionals can make is to say let's talk about healthy eating. Every parent knows about healthy eating For a child with offered all of that goes out of the window. We don't talk about healthy eating, we just talk about what can the child eat and what is the situation the child can eat. So you in fact try to reduce anxiety. So let me give you an example A and if I may, if that child for example sits around food, what they often have is their stress response because the food that they see in front of them creates anxiety.

Rosan Meyer (26m 24s):

So we have three principles. The first principle is the division of responsibility, meaning it's the responsibility of the parents to create an environment that's conducive for the child to eat. If that means for a child with Alfred and I, I mean really with Alfred in front of a television or with an iPad, then that's fine because if that means the anxiety comes down, then that is how you reduce the anxiety. The second thing is always provide with safe foods. So a lot of people say yes, my child doesn't eat all of the big variety. Doesn't matter, always provide safe food because if you provide safe food, the anxiety levels are down and because the anxiety levels are down you actually can get them to visualize new foods.

Rosan Meyer (27m 13s):

Second principle is sensory desensitization. Desensitization is not ooh, I'm smelling food, I'm putting in my mouth no desensitization means I visualize. If that means the food is there, I visualize, I look at the food there and it comes closer to my plate. Never contaminate a say food. There's so many parents saying I'm trying to mix in the pasta, some small pieces of vegetables, but then you lost the pasta so you never contaminate safe foods. New foods are always brought in from the side and never touching safe foods. So that desensitization takes not months but often years.

Rosan Meyer (27m 54s):

Third principle is food chaining. So you chain the foods to foods that are sensory acceptable. And I'm going to give you the simplest example. One of my children only eats a square vanilla biscuit. And so I then said okay, let's try a round vanilla biscuit. So the parent said to me, but that's not a new food. A biscuit is a biscuit. No for a child with Alfred, a round biscuit versus a square biscuit is a new food. So you chain foods that are within a sensory accepted range to current accepted foods. My first sessions with any child with Alfred and I wanted to say to you for that, mom is normally just around saying it's fine, let's just reduce the stress situation.

Rosan Meyer (28m 44s):

If the weight comes to a critical situation, I often bring in oral nutritional supplements, but those have to fit in with a sensory accepted range. So a child that doesn't like a vanilla milkshake will not drink a vanilla milkshake. So you have to introduce what they will have. And that's the same for supplements. It's hugely challenging to find a supplement of iron or zinc or vitamin D that a child with Alfred will in fact accept. And so we often spend a lot of time with that. So I would say to this mom, number one, if this child is very anxious, get a a psychologist that can that specializes in effort and can deal with anxiety, get a dietician that knows that is s os trained for example, that knows about the sensory sensitivities related to it.

Katie Ferraro (29m 34s):

Can you talk a little bit about where you find these people like an SOS trained psychologist and I know this is a person in my area, San Diego, I don't know anyone locally. Is it something you can do remotely? Is there an association or an organization for a family who's listening to it's like oh my gosh this is my child?

Rosan Meyer (29m 51s):

Katie, so before we had our discussion I kind of quickly just googled because as you can just for everybody to know that I work in the UK domain so I can't give an answer to all different country domains, but I know that you have the Alfred charities or associations that deal with Alfred. They have a lot of times specialists that deal within that. You have also SOS as you know a specific course. They have their names of those who are SOS trained. But I do wanna say don't just go for SOS trained, so sensory trained but go for the somebody that actually understands AFI well and is pediatric trained if you've got a child and for that in your area. Katie, if I'm right, you have lists of pediatric dietitians that I have found online that put down if they have got specialty as Alfred, I would strongly recommend not just to go to anybody without knowing.

Rosan Meyer (30m 45s):

I think support. The other aspect is support. You can get of course from associations, but not that I want to kind of market the the course that we run, but we do run a course within the UK setting that is open for parents and that's 10 hours online. So it's remotely and if you as a parent know your child has the diagnosis, this course is very much geared. It has psychology, medical, sensory, all of those things and it's run through University of Winchester and I can provide you with the details but we do absolutely welcome parents. It's interactive. So I would run, you have your lectures but you post all of your questions and things like that as well.

Katie Ferraro (31m 27s):

Rosa, I will link to the course that you mentioned as well some of the other resources in the show notes. Of course you mentioned SOS training and I wonder if we could just go back to that. Could you explain briefly what that means and what that entails? Is that a global qualification or credential or is it something specific to certain areas of the world?

Rosan Meyer (31m 45s):

It's basically, you know, specific sensory training around eating and and specific and healthcare professionals, dietitians, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, all of them can do it. It is of course the origin is us is the origin, but in the meantime it's become hugely international. And so I attended it within the UK with a U US team, but it's now after Covid you can do it also remotely from a training perspective. I want to be clear though here Katie, I use it as an example from a sensory because there are principles to be applied for it. But as we are both research trained, there's no specific data to say that the s os approach specifically helps with Alfred.

Rosan Meyer (32m 35s):

It's an approach that is used. But for example, in some of them you might find that a different approach works better. But I find that at least somebody that has some sensory training understands the absolute fear a child has with certain from a sensory perspective.

Katie Ferraro (32m 54s):

Rosan, where can our audience go to learn more about the work that you are doing in the resources that you mentioned and to support your work.

Rosan Meyer (33m 1s):

That's very kind of you to ask Katie. So the first thing I want to say is that of course I've got my website, but I am actually a trustee for AIT awareness uk, which I will provide. That means anybody can access it and we have international resources there as well. I will provide you with the detail which is informed by healthcare professionals. So that is really the association where I kind of throw my weight in. And then as I mentioned already, we make sure that we provide the online training for healthcare professionals and parents on offered at University of Winchester, which parents are welcome to as well.

Katie Ferraro (33m 41s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

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Katie Ferraro (34m 32s):

A final question for you Anne, just your personal opinion in having this conversation with you. I feel that a lot of parents, other professionals too are misusing the term ARFID, they're kind of throwing it around lightly. You've clearly demonstrated how serious this is and when you would get a diagnosis, but it reminds me of the conversations we've had previously about growth faltering in this term. You know, failure to thrive or even the term malnutrition, which was in the United States at least not a generally agreed upon consensus. And doctors throw that term around like my friend's pediatrician is the one that told her about ARFID and I know the child situation and I'm not, I would recommend and refer them to an expert as well. But I see lots of other parents who use these terms loosely and I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that.

Katie Ferraro (35m 15s):

A lot of this of course is proliferated by social media. Oh it's not just picking, it's severe picky eating, it's severe picky eating. Oh it must be arf I, they kind of jump to conclusions. And as someone working in this space, what are your thoughts on that?

Rosan Meyer (35m 27s):

So first of all, I, we have exactly the same experience. I, I'm appalled when I get a six month old referred to me with a referral and saying, this child has said has offered, that's not possible. We've missed something. You and me both know the child is not born with a Alfred. You know, there's an underlying diagnosis. So I'm hugely concerned about the misuse. So I would say to anybody listening to that ad to our discussion today to say if your child is below two and a half, three years of age, it's unlikely your child has got offered. It's likely your child has got a normal, you know, picky eater. And the things that would concern me is if a child is losing weight and I absolutely concur with you, not just losing weight but using, having somebody that really understands about faltering growth and how centile drops really work.

Rosan Meyer (36m 19s):

That would be a first sign where I would say you need to get help. And if you find that the specificities around food starts to go, I will only have this brand, I will only have this kind of certain sensory circumstances before I will eat food Without that, I would say to you it's likely just normal picky eating. But I think social media is not helping, really not helping. And I suppose you've inspired me maybe today again to put some posts out on Alfred and really explain that it's really not just a diet.

Katie Ferraro (36m 52s):

I so appreciate an expert like yourself coming out and saying that you're not shaming the mom, you're not saying she's doing anything wrong, but also your six month old baby does not have AIT full stop because parents need to hear that from experts not from social media.

Rosan Meyer (37m 5s):

I totally agree now and I think it creates anxiety because you go on to Google after somebody said to you that, and I think this is here where we as healthcare professionals, and I include myself in all of that, say we need to understand what our limitations are. I am not trained as a mental healthcare professional. So I always say to parents, your child has got characteristics of of it. If I'm pretty sure they have, then I refer them onto psychologist, psychiatrist, somebody I trust that I know has been trained and then they take it from there. But don don't go and slap a label on there without knowing 'cause I have had it wrong.

Katie Ferraro (37m 43s):

Well thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and I know our audience appreciates learning about this from you, the expert as

Rosan Meyer (37m 49s):

Well. Thank you very much for having me.

Katie Ferraro (37m 51s):

Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with with Rosan Meyer. She has such a knack and a gift for making complicated medical, sometimes confusing like diagnoses, very streamlined, very simple, and I appreciate that she came right out and said, your baby does not have ARFID, but she did a great job of explaining what AIT is and later on in the lifecycle, if you're worried about these behaviors, how you can get help and how working with a credentialed expert who specializes in this can really help get your child back on track with regards to their growth and their nutrition and their food. Because there is a lot of anxiety around feeding, but not all anxiety around feeding means you have ARFID. So I'll link to the resources that Rosan talked about, including her website and also that course that she was mentioning about ARFID, that parents are welcome to join as well.

Katie Ferraro (38m 37s):

That will be on the show notes page for this episode, which you can find at blwpodcast.com/462. A special thank you to our sponsors and our partners at AirWave Media. If you like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave. We are online at blwpodcast.com. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time

A Mindful Moment with Theresa McKee (39m 10s):

At a time when change is constant and we are pulled in far too many directions. We need a way to stay present to life and to increase our ability to remain calm, think clearly, and maintain our wellbeing. Many studies indicate mindfulness improves our mental, emotional, and physical health. On A Mindful Moment with Theresa McKee, you can learn how to practice mindfulness and enjoy its many benefits. Tune in for guided meditations and to hear tips and advice from some of the most respected experts in the fields of mental health and mindfulness. The world truly can be a better place. It all starts with a mindful moment.