ARFID is mainly diagnosed in kids who have severe ‘picky’ (but way way beyond that) eating. It’s a sensory disorder, and results in kids being scared of and avoiding novel or certain flavours, textures etc., and issues with feeding.
It can I guess be used as a diagnosis in adults as well but most patients are hidden and this girl has straight up anorexia. A kid with ARFID will eat only 5-10 foods, often has no appetite and it’s nothing at all to do with a drive to be thin. I know a kid with this - it’s a difficult disorder to treat but it’s of a completely different origin to anorexia. That kid you know who will only eat one type of pasta and drink one kind of tard cum out of a specific cup? That’s ARFID.
On the subject of: anorexia was the thing to have when I was at school. Then cutting a little later. Now apparently it’s seen as shameful and (according to friends who are in charge of pastoral care at schools) being trans has taken over as the main means of self harm for young women. It’s interesting that she (and so many other cows) will eagerly accept any diagnosis you want but on the same breathe utterly reject an anorexia diagnosis.
I wonder why? AN is serious stuff, and although it is in a way self inflicted it’s not really under the sufferer’s control. There are entire theses to be written on this .,, why is anorexia so out of vogue?
(Long time lurker, first time poster, etc.)
Personally, I think it's because those issues (anorexia, cutting, transsexualism) were all hot topics at the time with the general public.
They're all things that started out being pretty rare or extreme, usually with the sufferer treating it as a shameful secret out of fear of their reputation being ruined. But then for some reason, the public picked up on the existance of the issue and it became trendy to "speak out" or "raise awareness" about it.
And I think that's what makes angsty teenagers latch onto those issues: They see them as something that everyone's very concerned about, so they try to emulate the symptoms to cash in on what they think is a fountain of endless attention and sympathy that will show everyone just how difficult their life is.
I'm not saying these aren't legitimate problems. I just think there's a huge difference between someone who's 90 lbs soaking wet and still thinks they're "fatter" than most celebrities, and somebody who openly idolizes images of emaciated bodies and talks about how they want to see their bones. Or somebody who cuts only in areas hidden by clothing, and somebody who makes obvious shallow marks across their bare forearms.
Or course, when the public stops being concerned about the issue and moves on to something else, it stops being appealing. Anorexia and bulimia are out of style because the general public is no longer rallying around raising awareness about anorexia/bulimia.
For the munchies we see here, though, it seems like the eating disorder is almost symbiotic with the illness faking. The underlying eating disorder helps them fake the appearance/symptoms of the illness, and the false illness gives them a reason to always be "fighting" but never actually getting better. If they admitted anorexia, they'd also be admitting that there was a possibility for their problems to be cured.
