Season 2: Episode 2 - Bridging The Paradigm Divide: A Novel Framework for Pediatric Feeding and Eating Disorder Diagnosis and Intervention with William Sharp & Kathryn Peterson

William Sharp, PhD, directs the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program at Emory's Marcus Autism Center, where he's also a Professor in the Division of Autism and Neurodevelopment in the Department of Pediatrics. Kathryn Peterson, PhD, BCBA-D, is a professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Professors Sharp and Peterson join us for this second episode in our Big Ideas in Eating Disorders series that features contributing authors to the book that Dr. Ruth Weissman and I co-edited.

In Chapter 2 of Weissman and Pike's Big Ideas in Eating Disorders, Sharp and Peterson tackle a diagnostic puzzle hiding in plain sight. Two conditions, Pediatric Feeding Disorder and Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, are both used to describe eating disturbances in children, and they overlap so heavily that clinicians are often left guessing which one actually fits.

That confusion isn't just academic. Will and Kate trace how the field ended up with two overlapping categories instead of one clear path forward, and make the case that untangling them is essential to improve treatment. Get the diagnosis wrong, they argue, and the treatment doesn't just fail. It can make things worse. 

Join us for a behind-the-scenes conversation with Will and Kate as they unpack the chapter, the debates that shaped it, and what it means for the kids caught in the middle.