Food fear from trauma is one of the possible explanations for the origin of eating and food phobias. Trauma can be an actual anatomical injury, but in many cases in relation to food fears, turns out to be some unpleasant psychological experience in the past.
Metal health professionals often spend considerable time trying to determine the origin of significant eating disorders. This is a controversial stance. Determining the cause of an eating disorder can certainly help in overcoming the condition and its consequences. However, statistical fact demonstrates that most cases of ARFID can not be definitively traced to a specific origin, making for a waste of time and energy during treatment.
Should people who seek help for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder try to determine a traumatic cause for their peculiar eating habits? The best answer that can be provided is “Maybe”.
This post examines the forms of physical and psychoemotional trauma which might cause or contribute to the development of ARFID conditions (as well as other eating disorders and major health issues).
Food Fear from Physical Trauma
Physical trauma and abuse can have lifelong consequences on mind and body. People who have been seriously injured tend to retain that trauma in their body, mind and soul. It is little surprise that serious physical injury can contribute to eating disorders like ARFID.
In many cases, the injury might related directly to food and eating. However, this is far from universal. In other cases, food might be only peripherally involved or not involved at all, yet the traumatic experience still affects future eating habits. Here are some possible examples of traumatic physical injury leading to selective eating disorder symptomology:
Choking on a piece of food can be very traumatic. Some people who have developed ARFID do so after a choking incident.
Suffering serious food poisoning or sickness in relation to food can be highly traumatic. These circumstances can cause or contribute to ARFID development.
General accidents or injuries might interfere with normal eating habits and can therefore have lasting impact on future food consumption.
Abuse (especially by family and/or care providers) often affects a person’s ability to eat normally. Physical and sexual abuse can be traced in some ARFID sufferers.
Food Fear from Psychological Trauma
Psychological trauma is inherently linked to any form of serious physical trauma. If a person fits into any of the examples detailed in the section above, they will also hold psychoemotional scars from their ordeal. These sensitive psychological issues can also contribute to the development, perpetuation and worsening of ARFID conditions.
However, even in cases where no physical trauma occurred, many people with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder can cite (conscious or subconscious) psychoemotional trauma as being contributory to eating problems in their life:
Psychological abuse by a family member or other influential figure can lay a perfect groundwork for eating disorders to take hold. This abuse might be obvious or extremely subtle.
Any existing psychological/mental atypicality (diversity) may contribute to ARFID. Common examples of linked conditions are autism and obsessive compulsive disorder.
Any emotional condition stemming from traumatic occurrences involving poor self-esteem, poor body image and feelings of isolation can contribute to eating disorders, such as extreme finicky eating.
Overcoming Food Fear from Trauma
Now to the controversy surrounding attempts to link ARFID to trauma… In most situations, attempting to locate relationships to the cause of an eating disorder are performed by mental health professionals in therapy. This process CAN definitely be helpful, if a specific traumatic cause can be located during treatment, since now targeted interventions can be used to help the person to accept the trauma and move past it. This can be a fantastic thing!
However, this process can be very expensive and time consuming in many ARFID sufferers and often does not produce good results. Therefore, some mental health professionals do not endorse seeking to link hidden trauma to ARFID, since it is difficult and may actually open up a Pandora’s box of other problems if this trauma has been effectively repressed…
If the person is using self-help practices to treat ARFID, then the financial cost is not an issue and the time spent might be very painful and rewarding at the same time. I am a longtime advocate of introspective thought and journaling as tools for knowing oneself better and getting to the root issues that drive so many negative, persistent sates of dis-ease in the mind and body. I am all for doing the work, despite its extremely uncomfortable nature! I even wrote several books about self-help using psychoemotional practices for people with chronic pain. This has been my life’s work…
It is possible to overcome most cases of ARFID without having to find a traumatic source, even if one does actually exist. Cognitive/behavioral therapy can be very effective and so can many self-help practices. I detail many of these in my humorous and extremely helpful book My Food Fear, if you are interested in my own personal thoughts about beating avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (and finding optimal mindbody health in the process).
