Eating as stimming?

Post Reply New Topic

I've read all about Autism, and most if not all have their own type of stimming. I don't flap my arms and rock my body up and down like autistics do. Maybe I don't stim.

However, I find myself constantly eating something. I never go around without something to eat, usually it's chips, gum, cake, cookies, popcorn. Anything. If I'm not eating anything, I just walk around for no reason until I do.

Does excessive eating count as stimming as well?

I have wondered about this myself. I am really bad with it, I am always having to eat! And the types of foods I prefer are ones that are small and repetitive, in other words things like M&Ms, or a packet of chips, or nuts, or a big bowl of food with guaranteed multiple times I get to move the cutlery to the bowl and to my mouth, etc.
I try to use chewing gum to account for this (so that I don't put on too much weight!), but I really prefer food that involves using my hands repetitively.

I find this very hard to break, and I would do it all day if I could. I also have very sensitive taste buds in that I get SO much pleasure out of the taste of food also, so it has that extra reward for me.

I eat pizzas when I'm depressed. Does that count?

i feel i have this problem as well not as much now but i used to very much so i dont know if its considered stimming by professionals but i feel its definatly sensory related

I'm pretty sure that I used smoking as an oral stim.

I never thought of it that way - but actually, maybe. I do have a tendency to keep the face stuffed - even non hungry - if under certain kinds stressors and the right kind food is on hand.

I think that eating serves the same needs that stims do. At work, I constantly chew on my pens. At home, I nibble constantly. I'm trying to find some alternative, so that I won't be eating so much. I find that chewing on pens has much less appeal at home, where there is real food available. I like small, crunchy things, like chips, nuts, and hard candy. I don't like gum very much. I tried it, and it does help, but the texture is not very good. I like something with a little more substance.

There are some spicy foods I eat specifically for the sensory experience. If there were a way I could get that without the eating part (without just spitting the food out) I would totally do it.

I'm not sure if that's a stim, though.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I see eating as an AS thing for me. First, it is the stimming action. The repetitive motion that I seek when either anxious, stressed, or even happy. On top of that there is the sensory reward I get from it, like how Verdandi described. I enjoy the taste so much, and I also love things that have a crunch to them - the texture and the sound of it. On top of that there is the difficulty to stop doing a particular action, yet it is also kind of pleasing to just "give in" to that. I like a big packet of chips because I can just keep going with the action, and then I find it really really hard to stop doing it. I find it ridiculously difficult at the end of a meal to "put the brakes on", like that whole inertia thing.
As a kid, I was very much a "thumb sucker" for years and I remember chewing on all sorts of things too.
By what I have described, I must sound like I am quite overweight, but thankfully I am VERY strong willed when I need to be. Yet, it is something I battle with every single day. The need and pleasures of eating vs wanting to be healthy/slim, especially in my current line of work.

Eating as stimming is common among the kids I volunteer with, and a psychologist I know says it is extremely common in residential care facilities to the point that many of the kids there get obese. They tend to want almost exclusively sweets and carbohydrates.

I had never thought about it as a stim, but I think you're onto something. I too eat peanuts and sunflower seeds and candy, things that keep me busy eating.