3. Why it's common in neurodivergent & ADHD kids
Food today isn't made the way it was ten years ago. It's cheap, artificial and processed — built in a lab to fire a fast dopamine hit that tells your child's brain it's safe. Exactly the way an iPad does. And an ADHD brain already makes less dopamine to begin with, so the cheap hit lands even harder.
The brain builds a dependency on that hit. Whole food can't compete — not vegetables, not steak, not anything mixed together on a plate.
So they see the texture, gag, and learn: never again. Left alone, that's the road to ARFID.