Background
taste, smell, texture, psychiatric, eating disorders
DISORDER, DISORDERS
We describe the Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder – Genes and Environment (ARFID-GEN) study, which is designed to expand the discovery of genetic and environmental contributions to ARFID risk. ARFID-GEN builds on previous and ongoing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) by the Eating Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC-ED) as part of a global effort to fully characterize the genetic architecture of all eating disorders (EDs) and explore their relation to each other and to other psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, and metabolic/anthropometric traits.ARFID-GEN will ascertain, phenotype, and genotype a large sample of children and adults with ARFID. We will apply advanced analytic strategies to test and refine an etiological model of ARFID, explicate heterogeneity, and simultaneously document environmental risk factors for ARFID.ARFID is associated with high personal and family emotional and financial cost. ARFID, present in 2–5% of the population [Using existing Swedish twin data, we demonstrated that an ARFID phenotype is highly heritable (twin heritability estimate [hThe three key dimensions of ARFID identified are viewed as symptom clusters rather than distinct presentations. The sensory dimension encompasses rejection of food based on sensory qualities (e.g., taste, smell, texture, temperature, appearance) and is the most common reason for referral [