Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) often appears alongside neurodevelopmental, mental health, and gastrointestinal conditions in children. Yet the true prevalence of avoidant/restrictive food intake (ARFI), along with its contributing factors and links to developmental difficulties such as autism, ADHD, and epilepsy, has not been well defined. To address this, Norwegian researchers assessed ARFI in 35,751 children at ages 3 and 8 years. The study reported ARFI-broad prevalence rates of 6.0% for persistent cases, 17.7% for transient cases, and 8.4% for emergent cases.
Children with persistent ARFI showed significantly more developmental challenges than those without ARFI. Genetic analysis identified two genome-wide significant loci, with the ADCY3 gene specifically associated with ARFI-clinical at either age. These findings indicate that ARFI is relatively common in the…
