How common is Overeating on the Autism Spectrum?

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I think that is what I meant when I proposed that overeating can be caused by Autism

I've been overweight nearly my whole life, although it may be more due to my lack of physical activity than overeating, although I occasionally go on a sweet-tooth binge.

Food is one of most used antidepressants.

Exercise is the least used.

Last edited by drlaugh on 23 Mar 2016, 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I binge eat, and my appetite is incredibly variable.

I quite often buy a week's worth of groceries, only to find that it's all gone in a couple of days. Don't ever tell me to just "help myself" if you put cookies or salty snacks in front of me - I'll take you literally, and you'll never get a look in! Where it all goes, I have no idea - I think I just burn it all off with my pacing and fretting. When people see how much I can eat in one sitting, I've quite often been told I must have "hollow legs", as I'm all skin and bone.

On the other hand, I can sometimes go for days on nothing but a few slices of toast and the occasional banana. It can often feel like eating a meal is actually a bit of a chore - I have often joked with people that I'd be quite happy to have a little door in my tummy that I can open and throw in a couple of lumps of coal, like one of those pot-bellied stoves. Aside from very spicy food, especially curries, I derive very little pleasure from the flavour of food. I find the high prices in posh restaurants very perplexing - the few times I've experienced "cordon bleu" meals, I have found that I'd have been happier to have just had baked beans on toast.

in my experience it is not how MUCH you eat but WHAT you eat that can affect this. eliminate refined carbs and the lions' share of the work is DONE.

I am an obese overeater. There are *many* reasons why, but it didn't occur to me that Autism could be one of them until recently. I think I am going to find a chewable stim toy to see if that alleviates my desire to eat somewhat.

My first trigger food eliminated was cookies.
Zero tolerance led me to dream and eat as they say More Sugar.

Cut the sugar and elevated salties

I later learned all food and emotion was a trigger.
We have met the enemy and he is us. (Pogo)
Cognitive therapy sometimes is an aid.

Sometimes my hand on the cupboard asking why am I here.
Fear of being called to the principals office. Yep still here.
I must see the movie a Inside Out
I must not Should on myself or play the game ShouldA WouldA or CouldA.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned sensory issues or executive functioning issues yet. Unfortunately, many healthy foods have looks, scents, tastes, or textures that I can not handle. Whereas many unhealthy foods have textures that are great for stimming. Also, I have difficulty planning and monitoring what, and how much of that, I eat throughout the day.

I did mention sensory issues though in a different sense than you. I could not sense when I was full. Though I would admit that other sensory issues likely effected my choice of food. I liked sweets mainly but also foods with firm non soggy texture. I hated soggy foods & bitter, sour or spicy foods. I'm definitely a meat & potatoes kind of guy.

I think eating has been a source of comfort at times in my life. Growing up, my mother almost never allowed us to snack especially not sweets. I became addicted to Pepsi about 10 years ago and it took me several years to break that habit.
Now, I am at a low weight and make an effort to stay there. Also, I'm a vegetarian which surprisingly to me
doesn't guarantee low calorie. I am low carb as well. Stay away from fried stuff. Rarely eat bread, cereal, cookies or the huge assortment of white flour products out there.
I have a very repetitious but healthy diet which I find very comforting. It will take awhile but healthy habits can become your new comfort items. I think it can be hard to alter your diet and change really ingrained habits. The world conspires against you. The big corporations want you to eat all that unhealthy cheap stuff and then get health issues and get sucked into the money making health care industry. Don't let them do it to you!
It's not easy to avoid the bad choices but being healthy and at a reasonable weight can be such a reward in and of itself. If you don't buy it you can't eat it. Fruit is fast food too! Find something very low calorie and healthy as your fall back munching item and whenever you want to eat but know that you don't need to eat then eat that item. You can have all you want. But...because it's not really what you want you still have that craving. That's when you have too say if I were really hungry than this (healthy item) should satisfy me. I have no excuse to eat what I crave. It's all about will power and control. You don't need to go on a diet or announce to anyone what you are doing, just silently and stealthily take back control over your eating.

I've been treated for an eating disorder: Binge Eating Disorder. It was recently recognized by the DSM-5. It was like having bulimia, but I didn't throw up. I just kept bingeing and bingeing. I gained a lot of weight. I finally went to our local Eating Disorder Center to get treatment. They told me: whatever diet you are on, get off of it now. They told me about the diet-binge cycle. You go on a diet, lose some weight, your metabolism goes down. Then one day, you get hungry and go on a binge, and gain back all of the weight that you have lost, plus more. I've read that 95% of people who diet and lost weight end up gaining it all back again. Yo-yoing up and down is very bad for one's health.

What they instructed me on is to learn how to eat when hungry and not eat when one is not hungry. They said don't worry about losing weight because it might trigger a diet and then a big binge. So that's what I did. I am still quite overweight, but i'm healthy, don't have diabetes or high cholesteral. My heart is fine. There is a website: Health at Every Size. I rarely binge these days.

As an autistic person, eating food sometimes is a way of stimming.

Very common, I guess.

Mainly for anxiety/stimming issues and depression/self-destructiveness. Then: special interest in strange diets, texture preferences, forgetting about food for ages because of obsessing about something, till you crave for a lot of carboníc food, strict eating routines, compulsive acting, not getting a negative feedback about overweight and not understanding the emotional mechanism at work play a role. Plus there is an educational problem, parents are often on the spectrum and giving food might be their way of showing their affection or getting rid of a challenging child, then think of ABA therapy and their rewards.

There is quite a lot of scientific research and theory on the anorexia/Asperger link (from the Gillbergs and others), and as binge eating is often part of the bulimic form of anorexia, you should find more there.

I am typically the exact opposite: I often do not feel the need to eat and forget that I should be eating. If I am very occupied with something that I want to do, I will not stop to eat unless I absolutely have to. I have always been that way.

I think if there is a relation to autism, it could be that food is a comfort for many people, and that it's used as a way of coping with negative emotions. But NTs are also frequently overeaters, particularly those with anxiety disorders. At least that has been my observation. Trauma in childhood or sexual abuse can also cause food addiction in some people.

I overeat, but I also have the theory that some of it is eating to stim. I used to chew gum, but thanks to broken teeth (too much tapping, which has worn down my teeth and helped some to break), I can't.
Now, when I'm eating a giant plate of food, get up, and have seconds, that's just me overeating.

But I will ALSO, for one example, sit down with a bag of sunflower seeds. They get sucked on till the salty taste it gone, the tiny seed top thing snapped off, and chewed into smithereens, and then the seed is broken in half, and each side continuously nibbled until gone. I'll do this with nuts, chips (slowly nibbling, but can do it for hours, which is a lot of chips), sliced cheese (folded in quarters, nibbled into a circle, each slice separated and eaten, and then the circle is separated into slices and each is eaten one at a time), etc, etc, etc. I mean, I'm pretty sure that MOST food that I eat is consumed this way in some degree, but this type of eating is usually the one that makes me gain. I have been known to blow through bag after bag after bag of popcorn in this fashion, even chewing the kernels (evidenced by slightly ground down and chipped front teeth).

^That sounds real healthy, I know. But it isn't actually noticeable to people around me. It has gotten MUCH worse in the last 4 years since my teeth started to break, and I couldn't do gum. Gum was a lifesaver for me. As was smoking. Since I do neither of those, well, you know. I just said.

But mine is 100% not an urge to eat, or craving related. I can do it when completely stuffed, or when hungry. Happy, sad, depressed, anxious, etc. Granted, when I'm 100% at peace and content (which is rare), I don't need to.

I over eat. I get hungry a lot and don't end up feeling full very often. I don't think it has anything to do with Autism though.