Selective Eating: Ways to Beat the Autism Picky Eater Test

If there weren’t enough challenges for individuals on the spectrum, selective eating is one that also commonly occurs with autism and contributes greatly to mealtime stress.

It’s common for autism and eating disorders to occur in both children and adults alike, meaning the tendencies to have autism and food aversion can be a lifelong struggle. When autistics are children, parents may worry about nutrition and creating healthy eating practices. 

An adult picky eater may have learned to work around many food challenges, but selective eating can cause issues and even meltdowns when it comes to social events or going out to dinner with friends or loved ones.

It’s important to differentiate that selective eating isn’t talking about food allergies. That’s a whole different topic. 

Autism and eating disorders refers to mealtime struggles in finding something that an autistic will eat to pass the picky eater test while providing proper nutrition and hopefully some variety to the diet. Same food autism preferences are common, but become problematic when trying to find nutritional balance.

Roughly 50-90 percent of autistic children have some level of restrictive food preferences or sensory aversions limiting their diet, according to research. As parents try encouraging new foods that receive a thumbs up in terms of the picky eater test, they’re sometimes met by upset outbursts, tantrums, or complete meltdowns.

And just when they finally accept that they may be serving their child chicken nuggets for life due to same food autism preferences, those requirements may suddenly change to something differently entirely. That also holds true for an autism adult picky eater.

Yet what parents, caregivers, and friends and even spouses perceive as stubborn food refusal in regard to autism and food aversion can stem from instinctive biological reactions. To progress towards more varied diets, those with an autistic individual in their lives need to extend compassion about the root causes behind such intense selectivity of food choices.

With a better understanding of autism and navigating nutritional battles from food, autistics at all ages and those who love them can develop healthier relationships surrounding selective eating when it comes to autism and eating disorders.

Why Selective Eating Happens When It Comes to Autism and Food Aversion

Picky eating links back primarily to sensory differences, the need for consistency and challenges with cognitive flexibility for those on the spectrum.

Sensory factors play an enormous role shaping food habits. Tastes, textures, temperatures and more can get amplified or muddled when autistic nervous systems misinterpret input. While it’s not always clear why certain foods are chosen or avoided, it can be summarized with saying autistics may taste, smell, and see foods differently.

Items most people consider bland or mild by contrast overwhelm delicate sensory integrators. Discomfort quickly escalates if children feel forced to endure intolerable sensations. Screaming, gagging, or pushing away the offending food provides momentary relief from items that failed the picky eater test.

These are survival reactions, not willful misbehavior. Compelling a child to override them by “just taking one more bite” aggravates distress already at its limits. It’s critical that caregivers respect sensory boundaries around eating, which requires identifying individual triggers, and understanding autism and eating disorders.

The motivation for narrow food parameters that pass the picky eater test also stems from the comfort of sameness. The familiar offers security.

Broadening food horizons beyond a few standby “safe foods” means unpredictability and uncertainty.

This evokes unease for autistic minds inclined towards stability and routine across environments. Pushing new foods confronts their brain’s default for consistency.

Finally, concrete thinking styles common in ASD make transitions rockier. Understanding abstract descriptors like “healthy” or “nutritious” holds little meaning about actual food qualities. And cognitive flexibility to readily adapt remains underdeveloped.

So kids don’t easily generalize that adding some new favored food might align with old favorites. The mental capacity for adjusting mindsets around eating requires support. 

Passing the Picky Eater Test: Controversies Around Weight

When autistics consume such narrowly restricted diets, attention often turns to their growth when children. Pediatricians conventionally track height and weight percentiles, expecting fairly proportional curves. So when diminished weight emerges health providers sound alarm bells about failure to thrive and malnutrition.

Yet controversy stirs around interpreting lower weight in autism. Experts debate whether “underweight” or “overweight” by typical metrics holds the same connotations. Research indicates up to 70% of autistic children, teens and adults naturally sit above or below expected averages, even when metabolically healthy.

While many focus on underweight children with autism, the same concerns hold true with a picky eater that becomes overweight due to food choices. Already weary parents who only want the best for their autistic child and may be balancing raising neurodivergent and neurotypical children together as part of a larger family may grow frustrated with meal preparation that tries to please everyone (and usually doesn’t).

So providers walk a tricky line balancing weight goals without over pathologizing lower or higher scale numbers or aggravating food issues by either force-feeding or withholding favorite food items. Setting stringent rules such as enforcing a “clean plate club” or “no seconds allowed” can risk longer-term problems.

There are simply no easy guidelines for handling this complex dilemma with same food autism preferences and aversions.

Despite best efforts, some ASD children may be underweight and others overweight, and this challenge often continues throughout life. Chances are that a kid who experiences autism and picky eating will grow into an adult picky eater. The best hope is that mealtimes become more manageable with maturity and time.

Family Life Impact of Autism and Eating Disorders

The stress surrounding meal preparation, uncertain intake and battles to try more foods spills over into family dynamics too. Parents often assume most responsibility navigating their child’s limited repertoire and managing nutrition.

This can breed resentment when other children enjoy variety or meals cater to one restrictive eater.

Meanwhile siblings of autistic children may feel sidelined dealing with constant food refusals and reactions interrupting family outings to restaurants or parties. They may act out seeking attention missed accommodating a special diet. It’s easy for negativity and blame overshadow nurturing time together.

Beyond logistics, limited diets isolate autistic family members.

They can’t partake in bonding moments like baking cookies or conversational flow across dinner. Trying desperately to incorporate some nibble of a birthday cake yet always sitting out food traditions kids come to equate with “belonging” hurts deeply.

For all involved navigating narrow parameters means compromising a sense of normalcy and extending autism family support.

8 Techniques for Progress of Autism and Eating Disorders

With caregiving demands, worry and family dynamics all simmering beneath the surface, what strategies help move towards more flexible eating and helping autistics pass the picky eater test on food choices?

1. Start from a Compassionate Mindset
   First, it is crucial everyone approaches the child, and each other, from a compassionate mindset first. Judgmental attitudes induce more anxiety, while calm support builds trust. Have realistic expectations around gradual change given sensory wiring and cognitive differences.

   Differentiate between willful misbehavior and involuntary reactions – your child truly cannot easily tolerate certain sensations even if visually food seems fine. Stop comparisons with siblings or peers eating widely without hindrance. Instead reframe progress as moving towards each child’s own growth, however small the next stepping stone. 

2. Uncover Sensory Triggers
   Work alongside occupational therapists to pinpoint texture sensitivities or tolerances through systematic food sensory evaluations. For items that prove intolerable right now explore similar foods potentially better tolerated or determine necessary modifications. If temperature is tricky, acknowledge room temperature foods might be essential aspect of autism and food aversion.

   Some therapists develop customized sensory desensitization programs of selective eating, starting very gradually, perhaps beginning with tracing letters in pudding before even having finger paints touch a child’s skin. Moving through incremental steps over many weeks or months eases overwhelm.

   Essential too is respecting when enough is enough, letting the child determine what constitutes overexposure.

3. Incentivize Exploration
   For parents who are struggling with a child with autism and picky eating, consider gamifying food encounters to motivate engagement. Create obstacle courses to find hidden new bites. Use token systems where tasting something unfamiliar earns points towards prizes.

   Help favorite stuffed animals “try” new foods as demonstrations. Transform tasting parties into fun social events with sensory-friendly themes.

   A key consideration to exploration, however, is ensuring that the child is open-minded to exploration. Again, don’t force anything when it comes to autism and eating disorders, because it could backfire and make things worse.

4. Provide Control Where Possible
   Instead of putting unfamiliar items directly on a plate, offer side bowls allowing your child authority over what is consumed. Share choices between two options so decision-making power stays intact.

   Have your child assist preparing foods, allowing them to sprinkle own ingredients. These tactics reinforce autonomy, boosting readiness to participate.

5. Model Positive Attitudes
   Kids detect subtle cues from caregivers, so demonstrate cheerful interest and confidence when introducing new selections. Meet resistance neutrally without visible frustration because negative emotions surrounding food quickly condition avoidance.

   Siblings can also model peer enthusiasm trying items. But beware of pressuring tactics, because they simply won’t work. Hunger and curiosity at their pace work best.

6. Prevent Nutrient Shortfalls
   Consult registered dietitians to strategically incorporate nutritious substitutions for lacking foods. Explore naturally fortified staples like omega-3 enriched eggs, high protein pasta or vitamin-dense smoothies.
   Work creatively within current parameters before radically fighting to overhaul everything simultaneously. Baby steps.
   
   
7. Troubleshoot Challenging Situations
   Occasions like restaurant outings, extended family events and school settings often exacerbate picky eating issues. Prepare for these higher-stakes moments by role playing ahead and having a coping plan if overload hits.

   Carry safety food tools like chewy tubes releasing calming pressure. Have pictorial menus, apps or written agreements with staff to prevent surprises. With prevention strategies in place, what once avoided as “too hard” becomes manageable.

8. Emotional Support For Caregivers
   Finally, nurturing health requires caring not just for the child but parents and siblings impacted by mealtime wars. Educate relatives on sensory-based picky eating so gatherings become more inclusive.

   Protect family time together in other ways, assuring food issues don’t define relationships. Holiday meals are a prime time for food conflict. And seek supportive communities sharing your experiences. Whether you are a parent, a close friend, or spouse of an autistic, always know you don’t need to walk this path alone.

My Personal Path From Selective Eating to Food Savvy

I have my own experience with selective eating, and I know it created some stress and conflict through the years. Many of the items my family would try to get me to eat wouldn’t pass my own standards of the picky eater test, and what I would eat was sometimes far from healthy.

Growing up with autism, I would eat a lot of chicken nuggets and fries, and would resist eating many of the school lunches. At the same time, I didn’t like items in lunches prepared from home either, so I often was hungry in school.

As a teen, I fixated on cinnamon pop tarts, and would literally eat them all the time…sometimes both pop-tarts at once. I was also limited in other things, but went through a macaroni and cheese stage as well. I also developed a fixation for diet Coke, and unfortunately, it is one food vice that I still have today (although I’m getting better). For a while, I loved fast food.

I was always fairly skinny as a child and teen, and I’m sure my autism and picky eating played a factor.

What’s strange is that I have pretty much outgrown being an adult picky eater. I’m not quite sure why though. I guess I just got bored of eating the same things all the time in my late teens.

My mom thinks that that my food acceptance started when my parents and I were housebound for so many months during 2020 and the pandemic. She started basically cooking three meals a day, and laid down the law that people ate what she made or they could eat a sandwich.

Not having the option of going out for food made something click somehow. My diet is a lot more diverse and healthy now with a lot meat, fruits, vegetables, and other good stuff. I don’t really touch fast food often anymore, which I’m proud of.  

When on a recent trip to Mexico, I literally ordered…and devoured…octopus: twice! That’s not something I would have done even a few years ago.

I’m trying to do better every day and if you have a child that’s a picky eater, just give them time. Maybe they’ll grow out of it like I did, or maybe they will have selective eating for life.

But the good news is that for most individuals who have food avoidance issues, it does seem to improve with time.

Additional Family Perspectives on Selective Eating

While each child’s food journey is unique, connecting with others going through similar struggles can provide great comfort and wisdom. Some helpful perspectives I have come across in support groups and parent writings:

• Progress happens slowly over time. Approaching new foods may take up to 20-30 repetitions before acceptance. Tracking small gains in a journal reminds families change does happen even if very gradually.
  
  
• Kids detect subtle cues from caregivers, so demonstrate cheerful interest and confidence when introducing new selections. Meet resistance neutrally without visible frustration because negative emotions quickly condition food avoidance.
  
  
• Prepare for potentially challenging situations like restaurants or family events ahead of time. Have a coping plan, visual menu or safety food tools if overload hits. Prevent anxiety spikes by acknowledging sensory needs matter-of-factly.
  
  
• Protect family relationships in other ways not centered on food battles. Carve out special one-on-one time with siblings doing preferred activities. Make clear that food issues don’t reflect your child’s worth or lovability.
  
  
• Seek support communities to share your experiences and gain problem-solving wisdom from those walking similar paths. You need not navigate picky eating alone. Connection lightens the load.

I hope these real tips many parents have learned along the way offer some ideas for overcoming mealtime hurdles using understanding and prevention strategies.

What has your family’s eating journey been like? I hope you’ll share your story or helpful solutions as well.

With compassion as the compass guiding all players – children, adults, caregivers and providers – steady progress emerges over time. Perfection matters far less than resolute patience. Equipped with these tools, diverse foods can enrich an autistic’s diet through sensory-aligned exposures…one tiny taste bud at a time.

Additional Challenges Individuals with Autism Face

Learn more about other issues that autistics face:

• Autism After High School: Is College the Next Step?
• New Research Reveals Autism Mental Health Linked to These Disorders
• Is Autism a Disability? Surprising Reasons for the Debate
• Autism and Holidays:  Why Special Occasions Can Be Challenging
• 6 Fascinating Facts About Autism You Probably Didn’t Know
• 8 Popular Ways to Manage and Master Autistic Social Awkwardness
• Autism and Poor Hygiene:  The Smelly Truth to Overcome
• Breaking Down Barriers that Challenge Autism and Friendships
• Anxiety and Autism: 5 Powerful Strategies to Conquer Emotions
• 6 Ways to Tackle Autism Fireworks Anxiety and Sensory Overload