People who make fun of ARFID are some of the dumbest people alive. First of all, so what if I only want to eat fast food and chicken nuggets? Why does it affect you? Literally why? It’s my body, I will do what the fuck I want forever. The mere act of me choosing to solely eat food like that doesn’t have an effect on you in the slightest. (Obviously I get calling out behaviour if someone is being rude when offered other food, but that’s calling out the behaviour, not bullying the disorder*) Secondly, yeah, maybe i like those foods sometimes, but y’know what I actually primarily eat? Rice bowls. Beef, mushroom and spring onion rice bowls drenched in a soy sauce mixture. That’s been my safe food for the past multiple months. Y’know what else has been in present and past? Rice balls, beef stew, chicken ramen, tuna pasta, all home made and full of a variety of ingredients. I’ve also had fruit smoothies or toast or crumpets when I need low effort stuff. And there’s a lot of people like that! ARFID isn’t the ‘only eats fast food’ disorder, it’s the ‘avoids certain foods because the body LITERALLY TNINKS ITS POISON’ disorder!
Also, people say that it’s a western thing, it doesn’t exist outside of America. Frankly incorrect. Y’know why it seemingly doesn’t exist outside of America? Because y’all classify it as the ‘only eats fast food’ disorder! If a child in Japan is raised eating bento boxes, rice bowls, sushi, soups and stews, then they’re gonna develop those as their safe foods, and you aren’t gonna register it as being ARFID, because you don’t even know what the disorder is. You aren’t gonna look at a child only eating tuna mayo rice balls and think ‘that’s a child with disordered eating’, because you don’t even know the definition of the disorder you’re getting so worked up about!
*also another thing I see is people saying having the disorder is racist somehow? Because it’s seemingly always white people only eating food made by white people, but I bring up this little statement, and also the point above. If a white person with ARFID tries and then politely turns down a non-safe food, or even just turns it down, and it just so happens to be from a different culture, why does it matter? If they’re respectful, who cares? How is any different from turning something from their own culture down? And again, the reason y’all think it’s only white people with it is because you don’t even register people who eat anything other than processed food as having the disorder.
Man this whole thing is frustrating, just learn to mind your own.
