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Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is characterized by dysfunctional eating for reasons unrelated to body image. Family-based therapy is a first-line treatment for several pediatric eating disorders, but its efficacy in ARFID is unknown.
To explore this, researchers randomly assigned 98 U.S. children (age range, 6–12; 60% male) with ARFID to either family-based treatment for ARFID (FBT-ARFID) or psychoeducational motivational therapy (PMT), which is more patient-driven. All children were medically stable for outpatient treatment and met the study’s underweight criteria based on expected weight or BMI percentile. Many children also had comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, or g…