Is there a test for ARFID?

Not one a parent can take. ARFID is diagnosed by a clinician from a history, an examination and often a feeding evaluation. Clinicians sometimes use validated screening questionnaires such as the Nine Item ARFID Screen (NIAS) or the PARDI-AR-Q as part of that, but a screener on its own diagnoses nothing.

Can I test my child for ARFID at home?

No. A website that hands you a score is giving you a number with nobody to interpret it. What you can do at home is watch and write it down, and the checklist on this page turns those notes into something you can hand to a doctor.

What are the first signs of ARFID?

Often a list of accepted foods that is short and getting shorter, strong reactions such as gagging to new or changed foods, very small amounts eaten, or foods avoided since a choking or vomiting episode. Weight loss or a child falling away from their growth line is the sign to act on fastest.

What are the warning signs of ARFID?

Public sources such as NEDA and KidsHealth describe weight loss or slowed growth, nutritional problems, dependence on supplement drinks, distress around eating, and eating that interferes with school, family or social life. Any one of these is a reason to talk to your pediatrician.

Who can diagnose ARFID in a child?

Usually a pediatrician starts the process and refers on. The diagnosis itself tends to come from a psychologist, psychiatrist or an eating disorder or feeding team, often with a dietitian and a feeding therapist involved.

The Nine Item ARFID Screen, a short questionnaire developed by Zickgraf and Ellis that asks about selective eating, appetite and fear around eating. It is a screen, not a diagnostic tool, and a clinician interprets the result.

How many boxes do I need to tick before I worry?

There is no threshold, and a count would be misleading. One tick about weight or growth is enough to book an appointment. Several ticks elsewhere are worth raising too. The checklist helps you describe what you see; it does not decide anything for you.

At what age can ARFID be diagnosed?

At any age. It is often noticed in early childhood, but the diagnosis is not limited to children, and adults are diagnosed too.

Is the eating quiz on this site an ARFID test?

No. The quiz describes which eating pattern you are planning meals around, so the meal ideas fit. It does not screen for or diagnose ARFID.

ARFID Test for Kids: A Checklist to Bring to Your Doctor

There is no ARFID test a parent can take at home. ARFID is diagnosed by a clinician, sometimes with the help of a validated screening questionnaire. What you can do is write down what you see at the table. The checklist below lists observable signs to tick, print and bring to your pediatrician or a feeding specialist. It gives no score and no result.

Appointments are short, and the meal that worried you most is rarely the one you remember in the room. A written list of what you have actually seen gives the doctor something concrete to work from, and it stops the conversation ending at "they'll grow out of it" before the details come up.

Every item describes something you can see or hear. None of them asks you to judge what is going on inside your child, because that is the part a clinician assesses. Tick what you have seen over the past month or more, not what happened on one bad evening.

How to use this checklist

There is no number of ticks that means ARFID and no number that rules it out. A single tick under body and health, such as weight loss or a falling growth line, is reason enough to book an appointment on its own. Several ticks spread across the other groups are worth raising even when growth looks fine.

Add a line of detail beside anything you tick: which foods, since when, and what happens. "Gags at anything with lumps since about age two" is far more useful to a doctor than a tick on its own.

Tick only what you have seen more than once, over weeks rather than days.
Leave a box empty if you are unsure, and mention it as a question instead.
Ask another adult who feeds your child, such as a partner, grandparent or teacher, what they have seen.
Print the page with your ticks on it; the printout leaves out the site navigation.

If you are feeding a child with a short list of safe foods, EatPal plans the week outward from the foods they already eat. It sits alongside care from a clinician and does not replace it. Start free or take the 2-minute quiz.

What to bring to the appointment

The checklist is one page of the picture. These are the other pages, and most of them take a few minutes to put together.

This checklist, printed, with your notes beside the ticks.
A written list of every food your child eats now, by brand where it matters.
The foods they ate a year ago, if you can remember them, so the doctor can see the direction.
Three days of everything eaten and drunk, written down as it happens.
Any weight and height readings you have from earlier visits.
Your questions: could this be ARFID, should anything medical be checked first, and is a referral to a feeding team or dietitian the next step?

Write the food list with the ARFID safe foods list

The screeners clinicians use

Validated ARFID screeners exist. They are questionnaires a clinician scores and interprets alongside an assessment, and none of them diagnoses on its own. This page does not reproduce them.

The Nine Item ARFID Screen (NIAS), developed by Zickgraf and Ellis, asks about the three patterns ARFID is described by: selective eating, low appetite or interest, and fear of what eating might cause. Published validation work on it states that it is not intended for use as a diagnostic tool.

Feeding Matters lists the PARDI-AR-Q, a screening questionnaire drawn from the Pica, ARFID and Rumination Disorder Interview by Bryant-Waugh and colleagues, with a parent-report version for children aged four and over. For infants and young children, Feeding Matters publishes the Infant and Child Feeding Questionnaire, which parents complete online and take to their child's physician to discuss.

What ARFID is, and the three patterns

What usually happens next

A pediatrician will usually start with growth: weight and height against your child's own curve. Bloodwork may follow if the food list is short enough to raise questions about iron, vitamins or other nutrients. Because the DSM-5 criteria require that the eating is not better explained by a medical condition, doctors look for those first; KidsHealth names reflux (GERD), eosinophilic esophagitis and allergies among them.

If the picture points toward a feeding problem, the referral is often to more than one person: a psychologist or psychiatrist for the assessment, a registered dietitian, and a speech-language pathologist or occupational therapist who works on feeding. Ask what the wait is, and ask what to do at home in the meantime.

While you wait for an appointment

Keep at least one food your child reliably eats on every plate, and serve anything new beside it rather than instead of it. Take pressure off the table: no bribes, no bite counts, no hiding food inside a safe food. Keep writing things down, because the weeks before an appointment are the record the doctor will want.

This checklist is not a test and does not diagnose anything. EatPal is a meal planning tool. It does not assess, diagnose or treat ARFID, and nothing on this page is a substitute for a feeding therapist, a dietitian or your child's doctor.

Common questions

Is there a test for ARFID?: Not one a parent can take. ARFID is diagnosed by a clinician from a history, an examination and often a feeding evaluation. Clinicians sometimes use validated screening questionnaires such as the Nine Item ARFID Screen (NIAS) or the PARDI-AR-Q as part of that, but a screener on its own diagnoses nothing.
Can I test my child for ARFID at home?: No. A website that hands you a score is giving you a number with nobody to interpret it. What you can do at home is watch and write it down, and the checklist on this page turns those notes into something you can hand to a doctor.
What are the first signs of ARFID?: Often a list of accepted foods that is short and getting shorter, strong reactions such as gagging to new or changed foods, very small amounts eaten, or foods avoided since a choking or vomiting episode. Weight loss or a child falling away from their growth line is the sign to act on fastest.
What are the warning signs of ARFID?: Public sources such as NEDA and KidsHealth describe weight loss or slowed growth, nutritional problems, dependence on supplement drinks, distress around eating, and eating that interferes with school, family or social life. Any one of these is a reason to talk to your pediatrician.
Who can diagnose ARFID in a child?: Usually a pediatrician starts the process and refers on. The diagnosis itself tends to come from a psychologist, psychiatrist or an eating disorder or feeding team, often with a dietitian and a feeding therapist involved.
What is the NIAS?: The Nine Item ARFID Screen, a short questionnaire developed by Zickgraf and Ellis that asks about selective eating, appetite and fear around eating. It is a screen, not a diagnostic tool, and a clinician interprets the result.
How many boxes do I need to tick before I worry?: There is no threshold, and a count would be misleading. One tick about weight or growth is enough to book an appointment. Several ticks elsewhere are worth raising too. The checklist helps you describe what you see; it does not decide anything for you.
At what age can ARFID be diagnosed?: At any age. It is often noticed in early childhood, but the diagnosis is not limited to children, and adults are diagnosed too.
Is the eating quiz on this site an ARFID test?: No. The quiz describes which eating pattern you are planning meals around, so the meal ideas fit. It does not screen for or diagnose ARFID.

Sources

The medical statements on this page follow these public pages.

Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), National Eating Disorders Association
Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), Nemours KidsHealth
Validation of the Nine-Item Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder Screen Among Transgender and Nonbinary Youth and Young Adults, NIH National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central
PARDI-AR-Q, Feeding Matters
Is it pediatric feeding disorder? Infant and Child Feeding Questionnaire, Feeding Matters

Free tools for this

No account needed for any of these.

Picky eater quiz
Two minutes to identify which eating pattern you are dealing with.
Meal plan generator
Five days of meals built around the foods already accepted.
Grocery budget calculator
What a week costs when half the list is safe foods.