Parenting a child with ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) can feel confusing and overwhelming. In this episode, Dr. Marianne Miller shares practical and compassionate strategies for parents who want to help their children eat with less fear and more confidence.

You will learn why pressure and negotiation tend to backfire, how to create low-stress mealtimes that build safety, and how to attune to your child’s sensory needs through a neurodivergent-affirming approach. Whether your child experiences food texture issues, fear of choking, or intense sensory overwhelm, this episode provides grounded, actionable steps for supporting eating with care and collaboration.

Understanding ARFID beyond “picky eating” and recognizing it as a real eating disorder rooted in fear, sensory distress, or trauma

Why pressure and negotiation can increase distress and decrease trust

How sensory context affects eating and what small environmental changes can help

Transitioning from authoritative to consent-based parenting that prioritizes autonomy and emotional safety

Building trust through predictable, transparent, and compassionate mealtime practices

Knowing when to seek professional ARFID-informed, trauma-aware, and neurodivergent-affirming support

This episode is for parents, caregivers, and family members who are trying to understand and support a child living with ARFID or selective eating. It is also helpful for therapists, dietitians, educators, and healthcare providers who want to better understand the family dynamics that shape mealtime stress and recovery.

Many families are told to use pressure or rewards to encourage eating. While this advice may seem helpful, it often increases distress for children with ARFID. In this episode, Dr. Marianne explains why traditional approaches like “one more bite” or “if you eat your veggies, you can have dessert” can erode trust and worsen fear.

Instead, you will hear how shifting toward collaboration, sensory awareness, and emotional safety supports genuine progress. Learning to trust your child’s signals and prioritize consent around food can transform your home and restore connection at the table.

This episode includes discussion of children’s eating distress, food avoidance, and anxiety around eating. Please listen with care if these topics may be sensitive for you or your family.

To learn more about supporting your child’s eating with compassion, visit drmariannemiller.com/arfid to explore Dr. Marianne’s ARFID & Selective Eating Course.

This self-paced, online course provides practical tools, scripts, and real-world examples to help parents reduce mealtime stress, build trust, and approach food in a supportive, neurodivergent-affirming way.

What should every therapist truly understand before working with clients who have eating disorders? In this insightful interview, Dr. Marianne Miller talks with Edie Stark, LCSW (@ediestarktherapy) about what ethical, inclusive care really means.

Together, they explore why “gold standard” approaches like Family-Based Treatment (FBT) often miss the mark for neurodivergent, fat, queer, and BIPOC clients. The conversation highlights the importance of cultural humility, anti-fat bias awareness, trauma-informed care, and intersectional understanding in every therapeutic setting.

Whether you are a clinician, a student, or someone in recovery who wants to understand what quality treatment should look like, this episode offers a thoughtful look at how therapists can grow, unlearn, and create safe, collaborative spaces for healing.

Why “gold standard” models like Family-Based Treatment (FBT) do not fit everyone

How anti-fat bias and wellness culture shape eating disorder care

The importance of cultural humility and intersectionality in therapy

Ways to create trauma-informed, consent-based, and collaborative care

What ethical practice looks like when working with neurodivergent and marginalized clients

How therapists can identify and challenge their own internalized biases

Why eating disorder work requires humility, continual learning, and self-reflection

Therapists and dietitians who want to provide ethical and inclusive eating disorder care

Students and early-career clinicians who are beginning to work with eating disorders

Supervisors and consultants who guide others in complex clinical cases

People in recovery who want to understand what to expect from truly affirming treatment

Anyone curious about how bias, culture, and power dynamics affect eating disorder recovery

Edie Stark, LCSW, is the founder of Stark Therapy Group in California and Edie Stark Consulting, where she supports therapists through business consulting, case consultation, and supervision. She’s also a feature writer for Psychology Today and advocates for ethical, media-accurate portrayals of eating disorders.

Connect with Edie on Instagram at @ediestarktherapy and @edies_edits, or visit ediestark.com.

Dr. Marianne Miller is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in eating disorders, ARFID, and binge eating disorder. She practices in California, Texas, and Washington D.C., and teaches self-paced, virtual courses through her binge eating recovery membership and her course ARFID and Selective Eating.

Learn more at drmariannemiller.com or follow her on Instagram @drmariannemiller.

Many people discover they are autistic only after years of struggling with eating disorders. This episode explores how a late autism diagnosis can reshape recovery by offering new understanding, compassion, and practical tools that fit the neurodivergent brain.

Receiving an autism diagnosis in adulthood can bring both clarity and grief. It helps explain lifelong struggles with sensory overload, food textures, or social expectations, while revealing how years of misdiagnosis delayed meaningful support. In recovery, recognizing autism can change everything by connecting eating patterns to sensory differences and masking rather than willpower or motivation.

Autistic masking often overlaps with eating disorder behaviors. Restricting food, eating “normally” in social settings, or following rigid meal plans can become ways to hide difference and avoid judgment. This chronic effort to appear typical creates exhaustion and disconnection from true needs.

At the same time, sensory experiences around food are often intense. Taste, smell, temperature, and texture can feel overwhelming or unpredictable. Foods that others find pleasant may feel unsafe or even painful. Sustainable recovery begins when we make space for sensory preferences and allow eating to feel safe rather than forced.

Avoidant or Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) frequently occurs alongside autism. This overlap reflects sensory sensitivities, fear of choking or nausea, and low appetite rather than body image concerns. Recognizing this link shifts the goal of recovery away from compliance and toward creating safety, autonomy, and predictability in eating.

Autism and eating disorders cannot be separated from the realities of race, gender, body size, class, and sexuality. Marginalized people are less likely to be diagnosed early and more likely to experience bias in treatment. Fat, BIPOC, and queer autistic people are often labeled as resistant when their needs are simply misunderstood.

A liberation-based approach to recovery asks how we can build care that honors the whole person. It challenges systems that pathologize difference and reframes healing as a process of reclaiming identity and dignity, not just changing eating behaviors.

Dr. Marianne shares the story of a fat, queer woman of color who learned she was autistic in her late 30s after years of being told she was noncompliant in treatment. Providers dismissed her sensory distress and focused only on weight loss. She masked constantly, pretending to eat foods that overwhelmed her senses in order to appear cooperative.

Her diagnosis transformed her recovery. She began to design meals that respected her sensory needs, sought affirming providers, and connected with other neurodivergent women of color. Once her care aligned with her full identity, shame gave way to self-trust, and recovery finally felt sustainable.

A late autism diagnosis does not make recovery harder, but it does require reframing what recovery means. Sensory-attuned approaches allow individuals to choose foods that feel safe rather than forcing exposure to distressing ones. Predictable meal routines and gentle flexibility can replace pressure to eat intuitively when interoception is limited.

Executive functioning supports such as reminders, meal prep systems, and visual cues make daily nourishment possible. These tools are not crutches; they are accommodations. Recovery also involves boundary-setting and self-advocacy after years of masking needs. Finding autistic and intersectional community can turn isolation into belonging, making recovery not just about food but about identity and connection.

This episode is for autistic adults in recovery, clinicians learning to support neurodivergent clients, and anyone who has realized that standard eating disorder treatment does not fit. It also speaks to people exploring how autism, sensory processing, and identity intersect with food and body experiences.

If these experiences sound familiar, explore Dr. Marianne’s ARFID & Selective Eating Course. This self-paced course teaches consent-based and sensory-attuned strategies for reducing eating distress and building a more supportive relationship with food at your own pace.

When eating disorders overlap with anxiety, OCD, or depression, recovery can feel especially complex. In this episode of Dr. Marianne-Land: An Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast, Dr. Marianne Miller, LMFT, explores how co-occurring mental health conditions interact with disordered eating and body image struggles. She explains how anxiety often fuels food rules and avoidance, how OCD rituals can merge with eating rituals, and how depression can make nourishment feel almost impossible.

Throughout the episode, Dr. Marianne shares intersectional case examples that reflect the diversity of real-world experiences. You will hear about a Black nonbinary person whose anorexia and depression are dismissed by medical providers, a South Asian immigrant coping with OCD and bulimia in a culture where discussing mental health is taboo, and others whose experiences reveal how systemic bias and identity shape recovery. This episode offers understanding, compassion, and realistic tools for healing when multiple conditions overlap.

You will learn how anxiety, OCD, and depression intersect with eating disorders, why eating disorders rarely exist alone, and how each condition influences the recovery process. Dr. Marianne explains why addressing only food behaviors is not enough and how integrative treatment supports both the mind and body. You will also hear about sensory-attuned strategies and community-based care that help people move toward safety, nourishment, and autonomy.

Eating disorders often coexist with anxiety, OCD, or depression because they share common roots in trauma, nervous system overwhelm, and attempts to create safety. Anxiety drives control and rigidity, OCD fuels compulsive rituals around food and body, and depression slows motivation and energy, making self-care harder. True recovery acknowledges these overlaps and treats the whole person.

Healing does not mean erasing anxiety, OCD, or depression. It means building a life that includes these realities while reducing their control over food and self-worth. Recovery becomes more sustainable when treatment honors a person’s full identity, including body size, race, gender, and neurotype.

This episode is for anyone who lives with an eating disorder and another mental health condition such as anxiety, OCD, or depression. It is also for clinicians, family members, and supporters who want to understand how co-occurring challenges interact and how to provide compassionate care.

This episode includes discussion of eating disorders, anxiety, OCD, and depression. Please take care while listening and pause if you need to.

For deeper guidance, visit drmariannemiller.com/arfid to explore Dr. Marianne’s ARFID and Selective Eating Course. The course offers neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned strategies that apply to a wide range of eating struggles.

To learn about Dr. Marianne’s therapy services in California, Texas, and Washington, D.C., or to explore additional blog posts and podcast episodes, visit drmariannemiller.com.

In this insightful conversation, Dr. Marianne Miller sits down with Dr. Heather Rosen, a licensed clinical psychologist and certified Family-Based Treatment (FBT) supervisor and trainer, to explore how evidence-based treatments for eating disorders can evolve to meet the needs of neurodivergent clients and their families.

Dr. Rosen shares her background working in major hospital settings including Stanford University, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and Mount Sinai Hospital, and now in private practice in Westchester County, New York. Together, she and Dr. Miller unpack the heart of FBT—how involving families in treatment can strengthen recovery for adolescents and young adults with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and ARFID.

This episode highlights how food becomes a metaphor for emotional pain, safety, and connection, and why treatment must go beyond meal plans to address the underlying need for autonomy, co-regulation, and family healing.

What Family-Based Treatment (FBT) is and how it supports adolescent recovery

The role of parents in managing eating disorder behaviors at home

How FBT differs from other evidence-based treatments like CBT-E

Adapting FBT for ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) and neurodivergent clients

Why flexibility and curiosity are essential when traditional exposure-based methods don’t fit

Understanding food as communication: how eating (or not eating) expresses pain, fear, and the need for control

Shifting from compliance-based models to collaborative, consent-based, and neuroaffirming care

The importance of reducing mental health stigma and improving access to effective treatment

This conversation is for therapists, dietitians, parents, and educators who want to understand FBT in practice and how to make eating disorder treatment more inclusive for autistic and otherwise neurodivergent youth. It’s also for anyone curious about integrating compassion, family systems awareness, and sensory attunement into recovery work.

Dr. Heather Rosen, PhD

Dr. Marianne Miller, PhD, LMFT, is a fat, neurodivergent eating disorder therapist specializing in ARFID, binge eating disorder, and complex recovery care. She offers therapy in California, Texas, and Washington, D.C., and provides global support through online courses and resources.

Learn more about Dr. Miller’s work and self-paced course on ARFID and Selective Eating at drmariannemiller.com/arfid.

Have you ever wondered why recovery feels stuck, no matter how hard you try?

Unresolved trauma often lives in the body, shaping the nervous system and influencing how we cope, eat, and relate to ourselves. Many people discover that their eating disorder was never just about food or control—it was about safety, survival, and protection. This episode helps you understand why that makes sense and how healing is possible when both trauma and the eating disorder are addressed together.

Through compassionate storytelling and clinical insight, Dr. Marianne shares how trauma-informed therapy and body-based healing can help release long-held survival patterns. She also discusses how intersectionality, identity, and oppression influence the way trauma shows up in eating disorder recovery.

This episode is for anyone who has struggled with eating disorder symptoms that seem to linger, shift, or return over time. It will especially resonate with:

People who have been in treatment before yet still feel stuck in their eating disorders

Those who sense their eating disorder is connected to trauma, anxiety, or chronic stress

Neurodivergent individuals navigating sensory or emotional overwhelm around food

Survivors of emotional, physical, or systemic trauma seeking trauma-informed recovery

Clinicians, helpers, or loved ones who want to better understand how trauma and eating disorders overlap

If you have ever wondered why recovery feels unsafe, inconsistent, or incomplete, this episode will offer language and insight to help you make sense of your experience.

How unresolved trauma keeps eating disorder symptoms active for years or decades

Why eating disorders are often survival strategies, not failures of willpower

The role of the nervous system in trauma and long-term eating disorder recovery

How trauma-informed therapy helps create new pathways to safety and regulation

Why intersectionality matters in trauma and eating disorder treatment

Practical ways to rebuild safety, trust, and connection with your body

This episode includes discussion of trauma, eating disorders, and long-term recovery. Listen with care and pause if needed. If you are in distress, reach out to a trusted support person, therapist, or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.) for immediate help.

If this conversation resonates with you, therapy can help you begin to heal from trauma while working toward eating disorder recovery.

She offers therapy in California, Texas, and Washington, D.C.

Self-compassion is a powerful, learnable skill in eating disorder recovery. In this conversation with registered social worker, grain farmer, and mom of five, Carrie Pollard, MSW, we explore how compassion lowers shame, supports motivation, and helps people replace harmful coping with kinder, sustainable care. We talk about trauma-informed treatment, somatic awareness, DBT skills, and what self-compassion looks like in real sessions and real life.

What self-compassion really is: noticing suffering and responding to it with care, based on the Mindful Self-Compassion model by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer.

Why “the why” matters: exploring roots like trauma and chronic stress helps people understand why symptoms once protected them and how to meet those needs differently.

Behavioral tools and deeper work together: how CBT, FBT, and skills work can sit alongside bottom-up, body-based approaches and insight-oriented therapy.

Backdraft in self-compassion: why big feelings can surge when kindness finally lands, and how to ride emotional waves safely.

Somatic cues and capacity: using body signals, boundaries, and micro-pauses to prevent overload, especially for high-achieving, people-pleasing clients.

Rural and farmer mental health: unique barriers to care, higher anxiety and depression in farm communities, and why accessible, virtual support matters.

Self-compassion reduces shame and increases motivation, which supports behavior change in anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, ARFID, and long-term recovery.

You can ask two steady questions throughout healing: What am I feeling? and What am I needing?

Emotional waves peak and pass. Skills from DBT and mindful self-compassion help you surf them without self-criticism.

Recovery grows when systems of care address trauma, body image, diet culture, and access barriers faced by rural, disabled, neurodivergent, and larger-bodied people.

Carrie Pollard, MSW is a registered social worker in Ontario, Canada, @compassionate_counsellor. She brings two decades of clinical experience, deep community ties in agriculture, and a trauma-informed lens to eating disorder treatment. She co-founded a national farmer mental health initiative and participates in the Waterloo-Wellington Eating Disorder Coalition.

Instagram: @compassionate_counsellor

Counseling for Ontario, Canada residents: flourishwithcompassion.com

Waterloo-Wellington Eating Disorder Coalition: search the coalition site to find therapists, physicians, and dietitians, plus details for the professional development day on diversifying eating disorder perspectives (happening October 24, 2025).

Naming self-compassion backdraft so clients can expect it and feel less afraid.

Using hand-over-heart and paced breathing when words are hard.

Reframing symptoms as once-useful survival strategies, then building new supports.

Embracing imperfection in therapy and life to align with authenticity and values.

People in eating disorder recovery who feel stuck in shame or fear that kindness will make them “stop trying.”

Clinicians seeking to integrate mindful self-compassion, somatic work, and DBT with behavioral protocols.

Rural and farming families who need accessible, culturally aware care options.

Neurodivergent folks and anyone navigating sensory overload, perfectionism, or people-pleasing.

Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer

DBT skills for emotion regulation and distress tolerance

Waterloo-Wellington Eating Disorder Coalition directory and events

Carrie’s counseling: flourishwithcompassion.com

Instagram: @compassionate_counsellor

If you are in California, Texas, or Washington, D.C., I offer therapy for binge eating, ARFID, anorexia, bulimia, OCD, and trauma. Learn more and book a consult at drmariannemiller.com. If ARFID is part of your story or your family’s story, explore my self-paced ARFID & Selective Eating Course for practical, neurodivergent-affirming tools.

If this conversation helped you, share it with a friend, a clinician, or a family member. Your share helps more people find self-compassionate, trauma-informed eating disorder support.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Dana Harron joins me to discuss how couples can approach difficult conversations about eating disorders with honesty, care, and mutual respect. Together we explore what makes these conversations emotionally charged, how to prepare for them, and how partners can support each other without taking on the role of therapist or monitor. Dr. Harron offers practical guidance from her book Loving Someone With an Eating Disorder and her work at Monarch Wellness & Psychotherapy.

You’ll learn what helps these conversations go more smoothly, how to create safety before and after hard talks, and when to bring in a therapist who understands both eating disorders and couples dynamics.

This episode discusses eating disorders, disordered eating behaviors, and relationship stress that can arise during recovery. Some listeners may find certain details activating. Please take care of yourself while listening, and pause or skip ahead as needed.

Dana Harron, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and founder of Monarch Wellness & Psychotherapy in Washington, D.C. She specializes in trauma, parenting, and eating disorders. She is the author of Loving Someone With an Eating Disorder: Supporting, Nurturing, and Connecting With Your Partner and is currently writing Parenting Beyond Trauma.

You can find her work at monarchwellness.com and on Instagram at @monarchwellnesspsychotherapy.

How to prepare before opening up about your eating disorder to a partner

Why I-statements and emotional honesty matter more than having all the answers

The best times and places for difficult conversations about food and body image

What to say when your partner asks questions you cannot answer yet

How to plan a follow-up discussion and build routine check-ins

Why post-conversation decompression helps the nervous system reset

What couples therapy can look like when one partner struggles with an eating disorder

How to balance support and autonomy without creating a power differential

Dr. Harron shares how her book was inspired by the lack of resources for partners of adults with eating disorders.

Tips for partners on when to speak, when to listen, and how to avoid meal-time conversations about food behaviors.

The importance of humor, co-regulation, and small moments of levity in recovery.

How systemic patterns in relationships can reinforce eating disorder behaviors.

Why “honesty” in recovery is about emotional congruence, not just full disclosure.

Prime the moment: Let your partner know a sensitive topic is coming and ask for what you need—listening, reassurance, or space.

Avoid high-stress times: Skip conversations around meals or when one partner is emotionally depleted.

Plan ongoing conversations: Short, consistent check-ins build predictability and reduce tension.

Use shared recovery language: I-statements and gentle curiosity create safety and understanding.

Involve professionals: A therapist or dietitian trained in eating disorders can guide communication and prevent relational burnout.

If you or your partner are navigating eating disorder recovery and want support that honors both of your needs, I offer therapy in California, Texas, and Washington, D.C., and global coaching for couples and individuals. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed, and consent-based.

Learn more or schedule a consultation at drmariannemiller.com.

Explore my ARFID & Selective Eating Course to understand sensory challenges, reduce distress around meals, and improve communication within your household.

Host: Dr. Marianne Miller, LMFT

If this episode resonates, share it with a partner, therapist, or loved one who may benefit from a more compassionate way to talk about eating disorders and recovery.

Is ARFID genetic? In this episode of Dr. Marianne-Land: An Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast, Dr. Marianne Miller explores the newest 2025 research on Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) and what it means for diagnosis and treatment.

You will hear how twin studies show that ARFID has a strong genetic component, why large projects like EDGI2 and the ARIES study are changing the research landscape, and how updated diagnostic criteria in 2025 are helping clinicians better identify and support people with ARFID. The episode also highlights brain scan findings that explain why food can feel overwhelming, threatening, or unappealing, and treatment studies that show real recovery progress through virtual care and ARFID-specific tools.

Genetics play a big role in ARFID but do not determine your destiny

2025 research reveals important connections between ARFID, brain differences, gut health, and sensory processing

Updated diagnostic criteria are improving accuracy and access to treatment

ARFID-specific tools such as the PARDI-AR-Q and EDY-Q provide a more accurate picture of progress

Treatment outcomes for children, teens, and adults are encouraging, including in virtual care settings

ARFID is not caused by poor parenting or lack of willpower. It reflects the way a sensitive brain and body respond to the world. With consent-based, sensory-attuned, and neurodivergent-affirming care, meaningful recovery is possible.

If you are ready for practical, step-by-step tools to support ARFID, explore my ARFID and Selective Eating Course at drmariannemiller.com/arfid. This course is designed for families and professionals who want compassionate and effective strategies for ARFID care.

What if your body size determined whether or not doctors believed you had anorexia? In this solo episode of Dr. Marianne-Land: An Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast, Dr. Marianne Miller, LMFT, challenges the diagnosis of atypical anorexia and reveals why this label fails people who deserve to be taken seriously.

This category is not about atypical symptoms. It is about anti-fat bias. People in larger bodies who restrict food, obsess about weight, and experience medical complications are often told they cannot truly have anorexia because they do not look emaciated. This episode explains why that belief is harmful, how it delays treatment, and the real medical risks that exist at any body size.

Dr. Marianne also explores how anti-fat bias, weight stigma, and cultural stereotypes erase the experiences of marginalized people, especially fat, queer, neurodivergent, disabled, and BIPOC communities. She challenges providers and listeners to recognize anorexia for what it is: a serious illness in every body, not only in those that match the stereotype.

If you have ever been given the label “atypical anorexia,” this episode will affirm what you may already know. Your suffering is valid, you deserve care, and you do not need to prove how sick you are in order to receive treatment.

Why the label “atypical anorexia” exists and how it reinforces anti-fat bias

The medical risks of anorexia that occur across all body sizes

How stereotypes harm people in larger bodies with eating disorders

The role of intersectionality in who gets overlooked and dismissed

How to move toward weight-inclusive eating disorder treatment

People in recovery from atypical anorexia or restrictive eating

Families supporting a loved one with an eating disorder

Providers seeking to understand anti-fat bias in treatment settings

Anyone who has ever been told they were not “sick enough”

I am Dr. Marianne Miller, LMFT, a fat eating disorder therapist specializing in anorexia, ARFID, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. I provide therapy in California, Texas, and Washington, D.C., and offer online resources worldwide.

🌐 Learn more and explore resources: drmariannemiller.com

➡️ You can also follow me on Instagram @drmariannemiller