Resisting the Pathologizing of Autistic Eating

Abstract

Autistic people live in a world that pathologizes their every action, not the least of which are their limited diet preferences and selectivity for certain types of food. The result is the assumption that many, or even most, autistics have an eating disorder or a feeding disorder. I examine this assumption by looking at the literature that describes autistics’ mealtime rituals and preferences for familiar foods. These rituals are often the result of, and a means to reduce, the sensory overloads that mealtimes represent, an overwhelming confusion of tastes, smells, textures, and sounds. Rituals, same foods, and moving around can help autistics cope. These preferences can be as simple as a preferred seat at the table, specific cutlery, foods not touching or on separate plates, or presenting a hot dog in a bun despite the child never eating the bun. Food neophobia, a refusal to try new foods, is also a well-known autistic trait, and often a source of contention between autistics and allistics (non-autistics). I contend that while these behaviours are often understood as rebellion, stubbornness, picky eating, or other forms of misbehaviour, they are not eating disorders. Autistics ought to be allowed to choose how, when, and what they eat. Treatments to alter autistic eating attempt to re-order the autistic in accordance with dominant eating orders. Such corrective and coercive measures are justified by the argument that if allowed to eat as they wish, autistics will be harmed, such as by missing out on the pleasures of social sharing or disrupting the serenity of the family. I argue that autistic eating preferences should not be pathologized, and I call for a radical autistic scholarship, done by autistics, that starts from the perspective that we do not have a disorder.