Interoception and ARFID

Why Compliance-Based Feeding Strategies Can Backfire

Common feeding interventions—such as cognitive behavioral therapy, token boards, or “just one bite” exposure goals—are often built around external motivation and/or very little curiosity or validation of a person’s inner felt experience. These compliance-based strategies can unintentionally cause harm, especially for people with ARFID.

Why?

• They invalidate the real, body-based experiences of discomfort or fear
• They encourage masking and ignoring interoceptive cues
• They may condition individuals to dissociate from their bodies to meet expectations

These strategies often further derail the interoceptive experience. They teach someone to ignore what their body is telling them in order to meet someone else’s demand—and that can be deeply damaging.

This matters because avoidant restrictive food intake isn’t simply about behavior. It’s often a response to internal signals that are unreliable. For example, someone may avoid eating certain foods because interoceptive cues—like pain, nausea, or sensory overwhelm—are too intense or unpredictable. Others might not feel hunger or fullness until they are in extreme states—the dysregulation making it hard to meet the body’s needs effectively.

Instead of external control, people with ARFID need affirming support that prioritizes felt safety, inner curiosity, and body trust. Interoception helps re-center their internal experience, offering insight into distress and discomfort while supporting more comfortable and empowered relationships with food.

How Interoception Can Help People with ARFID Eating Disorder

In many traditional eating disorder treatment models, interoception is overlooked. But growing evidence—and lived experience—suggests that restoring a connection to internal signals is key to long-term support and self-trust.

Interoception provides two critical insights: it helps us understand what someone may be experiencing now (like distress, fear, or sensory mismatch), and it gives us a pathway toward more regulated, comfortable eating experiences over time.

The Interoception Curriculum^© offers a structured approach to body exploration, helping individuals understand their unique internal signals. When people are supported to safely explore what hunger, fullness, pain, thirst, disgust, or satiety feels like in their body (rather than how it’s “supposed to” feel), they’re better able to regulate and advocate for their needs. Interestingly, interoception work has also been found to support improvements in body image and body trust, as well as help decrease reliance on external cues for nourishment.

What matters most is supporting the person with inner curiosity and validation—not fixing the food. In this model, interoceptive reconnection is not about demanding change—it’s about empowering people to understand, regulate, and advocate for what their bodies need.

Interoception’s Role in Other Eating Disorders

While this page focuses on ARFID, interoception differences are also relevant in eating disorders (ED) like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. In these conditions, body signals such as hunger, fullness, or emotional distress may be muted, misread, or overridden. This disconnect can contribute to restrictive behaviors, binge-purge cycles, or a lack of attunement to the body’s needs.

Rebuilding interoceptive awareness—gently and without pressure—can help support more regulated and compassionate relationships with food. For autistic individuals, whose sensory and neurological experiences are often misunderstood, interoception work is especially important—but often left out of traditional treatment models.

To dive deeper into this intersection, check out our on-demand course Autism and Eating Disorders: Dying to Be Thin, co-taught with autistic advocate Kim Clairy. The course explores current research and offers practical tools for adapting ED care to better honor autistic neurology.

People with ARFID Are Not Picky Eaters: Hear It From Them!

In many traditional eating disorder treatment models, interoception is overlooked. But growing evidence—and lived experience—suggests that restoring a connection to internal signals is key to long-term support and self-trust.

ARFID is so often misunderstood as “picky eating,” but the reality is far more complex and deeply rooted in the body. Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is not about food preferences—it’s about how the nervous system, senses, and internal body signals respond to the eating experience itself.

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Through a survey of more than 70 people who identify as having ARFID, my colleague Naureen Hunani and I heard powerful stories of pain, fear, and misunderstanding. Many participants shared experiences of physical discomfort while eating—like reflux, migraines, and nausea—and the frustration of being dismissed or disbelieved by professionals. These experiences highlight a crucial truth: ARFID is a body-based, sensory, and interoceptive condition that requires compassionate, validating support—not pressure to “just try new foods.”

Read The Experiences of People with ARFID

What people with ARFID want most is to be believed, understood, and given autonomy over their own eating experiences. Every voice in our research emphasized the importance of felt safety and choice—deciding what, when, and how they eat without judgment. Sensory differences play a huge role, from textures and smells to the sounds and visuals of food, making the act of eating overwhelming for many.

When we approach ARFID through the lens of interoception, we can support individuals in rebuilding trust with their bodies and creating environments that feel safe and predictable. True progress happens not through fixing or forcing, but through curiosity, respect, and the belief that every body’s experience with food deserves to be honored.