Interoception and Eating in Neurodivergent Adults: Hunger, Fullness and Forgetting to Eat

You may feel no hunger for most of the day, then suddenly become shaky, nauseous, irritable or unable to think.

You know food would probably help, but deciding what to eat now feels impossible. Cooking has too many steps, the available texture feels wrong and your appetite has disappeared under the urgency of needing food.

At other times, you may begin eating without a clear sense of hunger and notice fullness only when it becomes uncomfortable.

Interoception and eating are closely connected, but body signals are only one part of the picture. Neurodivergent eating can also be shaped by attention, time, sensory processing, executive functioning, medication, digestion, emotion and access to suitable food.

Understanding the complete pattern can replace shame with support that works before your body reaches crisis.

🫀 What Interoception Means in Eating

Interoception is the process through which the brain receives and interprets information from inside the body.

Eating related interoceptive signals can include:

🍽️ emptiness, pressure or movement in the stomach
⚡ changes in energy or concentration
🌡️ warmth, shakiness or weakness
🤢 nausea or digestive discomfort
🧠 changes in alertness and thinking
🥤 dry mouth, headache or thirst
😌 increasing satisfaction during a meal
🛑 physical fullness or reduced interest in continuing

The body does not send one universal sensation labelled hunger.

One person feels stomach emptiness. Another notices irritability, cold hands or reduced concentration. Someone else notices almost nothing until the need becomes intense.

Interoception also involves several different abilities.

You need to:

📡 register that a body signal is present
🔍 direct enough attention towards it
🏷️ identify what the signal may mean
⚖️ distinguish it from anxiety, pain, fatigue or overload
🛠️ choose an appropriate response
🚪 begin the actions required to meet the need

A person may notice a sensation accurately but misunderstand it. Another may understand hunger well but remain unable to organise food.

This is why “listen to your body” can be helpful for some people and confusing for others.

🍽️ Hunger, Appetite, Fullness and Satiety Are Not Identical

These words are often used as though they describe one process.

They refer to related but different experiences.

🫀 Hunger

Hunger refers broadly to the body’s need for energy and nourishment.

It may be experienced through physical sensations, changes in attention, mood or energy.

😋 Appetite

Appetite is the desire or willingness to eat.

You can be physically hungry and have little appetite because of nausea, medication, stress, sensory aversion or decision fatigue.

You can also have an appetite for a specific sensory experience without noticing strong physical hunger.

🍲 Fullness

Fullness describes the immediate physical experience of food being present in the digestive system.

It may increase gradually or appear suddenly.

🌿 Satiety

Satiety is the reduction in the drive to continue eating and the period of satisfaction following food.

These signals do not always line up neatly.

You may need food without wanting anything available. You may feel physically full after a small amount while still needing further nourishment. You may enjoy eating while being uncertain whether the body is hungry.

The mismatch is information, not evidence that you are eating incorrectly.

📉 When Hunger Signals Arrive Late

Some neurodivergent adults do not notice the gradual stages of hunger.

The pattern may feel like:

😶 no obvious signal
💻 continued work or hyperfocus
🌫️ increasing fog or irritability
🤢 sudden nausea or weakness
🚨 urgent need for food
🧊 difficulty deciding or preparing anything

By the time hunger becomes unmistakable, the executive capacity needed to find food may already be reduced.

The person is then asked to plan, choose, prepare and eat at the moment when thinking has become least reliable.

This can create an apparently contradictory experience:

💬 “I am desperately hungry, but I cannot make myself eat.”

The statement can be completely accurate.

Hunger has become intense while appetite, decision making, sensory tolerance or task initiation has deteriorated.

🧠 Why ADHD Can Make Meals Disappear

ADHD can affect eating even when a person recognises hunger normally.

Attention may remain captured by work, a game, a conversation or an urgent problem. Subtle body signals fail to become the current priority.

Time may also pass without producing a clear sense of duration.

A person thinks they will eat after completing one action. Several hours later, the action has expanded or been replaced by another task.

Eating itself requires executive functioning:

🗓️ deciding when food needs to happen
🛒 obtaining suitable ingredients
🧊 remembering what is available
🍳 preparing or assembling it
🔄 stopping the current activity
🪑 shifting into the eating context
🧼 managing dishes and cleanup

The difficulty may occur anywhere within this chain.

A fridge can contain food while containing nothing that is currently accessible. Ingredients still require planning, preparation, tolerance for mess and enough energy to complete the process.

The problem is not always forgetting hunger.

Sometimes the person remembers food repeatedly but cannot cross the activation barrier between thinking about eating and having something ready.

♾️ Autism, Sensory Processing and Food Access

Food is a complex sensory experience.

Each item has:

👃 smell
👅 taste
🥣 texture
🌡️ temperature
👁️ appearance
🔊 sound
🔄 consistency across bites

A familiar product may feel safe because its sensory properties are predictable. A small change in brand, recipe or preparation can turn it into a different experience.

Autistic adults may avoid foods that cause:

🤢 gagging or nausea
🔥 painful intensity
🧵 intolerable textures
👃 overwhelming smells
❓ unpredictable mixed sensations
🦷 difficult chewing or swallowing experiences

This is not always a preference that can be overridden through determination.

Sensory disgust can be immediate and physical. Pressure may increase distress and strengthen avoidance rather than making the food easier to tolerate.

Eating environments matter as well.

A restaurant, workplace kitchen or shared dining room can combine:

🗣️ conversation
🍴 cutlery sounds
👃 several food smells
💡 difficult lighting
👥 social observation
🧠 decisions and unfamiliar expectations

Someone may tolerate the food at home but remain unable to eat it in a crowded environment.

Qualitative research with autistic adults has described sensory sensitivity, executive demands, routines, medical difficulties and communal environments as interacting influences on eating (Kinnaird et al., 2019).

🔀 The AuDHD Eating Conflict

AuDHD can create needs that appear to pull in opposite directions.

You may need familiar foods because predictable taste and texture reduce sensory risk.

You may also become unable to eat a repeated food because it has lost novelty or suddenly feels wrong.

You may benefit from regular meal times but struggle to maintain routines that feel repetitive.

You may seek strong flavours or crunchy textures for stimulation, then become unable to tolerate smell or chewing when overloaded.

The conflict may look like:

🥣 “I need safe foods.”
🔄 “I am tired of every safe food.”
🍳 “I want something different.”
🌫️ “Choosing something new requires too much effort.”
🍽️ “I need to eat.”
🚪 “Nothing feels accessible.”

This is not indecision in the ordinary sense.

Autistic predictability, ADHD novelty, sensory capacity and executive access may all be shaping the same moment.

A workable food system usually needs both dependable defaults and low effort variation.

🧊 Fullness May Also Be Delayed or Confusing

Interoceptive differences do not only affect beginning a meal.

Some people notice fullness only when it becomes uncomfortable. This may be more likely when they began eating extremely hungry, eat quickly or remain focused on another activity.

Others experience early fullness, nausea or discomfort after a small amount.

Possible influences include:

🫀 interoceptive interpretation
😰 stress or anxiety
💊 medication
🔥 sensory overload
🩺 digestive or other medical conditions
🍽️ eating after a long period without food
🧠 attention being directed elsewhere

Do not assume that every fullness difference is neurodivergent.

Persistent early fullness, pain, reflux, vomiting, swallowing difficulty or major digestive change deserves medical assessment.

Interoception can make symptoms harder to describe. It should not be used to dismiss them.

🌫️ Confusing Hunger With Anxiety, Fatigue or Overload

Internal states often share physical signals.

Hunger, anxiety and overload can all involve:

🤢 nausea
🧠 reduced concentration
🔥 irritability
🌡️ heat or shakiness
💓 bodily activation
🚪 a need to escape
🌫️ feeling generally wrong

When the exact label is unclear, waiting for certainty may not help.

You can begin with a broader question:

💬 “Which basic need has not been checked recently?”

Consider:

🍽️ food
🥤 fluid
😴 sleep or rest
🌡️ temperature
🚽 bathroom needs
🎧 sensory reduction
💊 medication timing
🩺 illness or pain

A small, tolerable response can provide information.

If eating something accessible improves concentration or irritability, hunger may have been part of the pattern. If it does not, that does not mean eating was a mistake. More than one need may be present.

🔁 Irregular Eating Can Create Its Own Cycle

Delayed awareness and difficult food access can reinforce each other.

The cycle may look like:

😶 early hunger is faint or missed
💻 attention remains elsewhere
📉 energy and executive capacity fall
🍳 food preparation feels harder
🚪 eating is delayed further
🚨 hunger becomes urgent
🍕 the quickest accessible food is eaten rapidly
🤢 fullness or discomfort appears suddenly
🪞 shame follows
📋 strict plans are made for tomorrow
🔁 the plan requires more capacity than is available

The problem becomes framed as discipline when the system continues depending on signals and executive skills that are unreliable.

Breaking the cycle often means making food available before hunger becomes urgent rather than improving decisions during the crisis.

⚖️ Irregular Eating Is Not Automatically an Eating Disorder

Forgetting meals, relying on safe foods or finding hunger difficult to read does not automatically mean someone has an eating disorder.

An eating disorder involves clinically significant disturbance, impairment or health risk. The pattern may involve restriction, binge eating, compensatory behaviour, body image concerns, fear, sensory avoidance or low interest in food.

Assessment needs to consider:

📉 nutritional and physical effects
🧠 thoughts and fears surrounding food
🪞 body image and weight concerns
🍽️ the range and amount of accessible food
🚪 interference with work, relationships or daily life
🤢 fear of choking, vomiting or physical consequences
🔁 loss of control or compensatory behaviour
💊 medication and medical conditions

Neurodivergent eating and eating disorders can coexist.

It is also possible for autistic eating patterns to be misunderstood by assessment tools that assume weight and shape concerns are always central. Conversely, clinicians should not overlook body image distress simply because someone is autistic.

Recent research indicates that atypical eating and traditional eating disorder concerns can both be relevant in autistic adults (Westwood et al., 2026).

🚩 When Limited Eating May Be ARFID

Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, or ARFID, involves avoidance or restriction that causes significant nutritional, physical or functional consequences.

Restriction is not primarily driven by a wish to change body weight or shape.

ARFID presentations may involve:

🎧 intense sensory aversion
😶 low interest in food or eating
😨 fear of choking, vomiting, pain or another negative consequence
📉 difficulty meeting nutritional or energy needs
🍽️ dependence on supplements or specialised support
🚪 significant interference with social and daily life

A narrow diet alone does not establish ARFID.

Some people eat a limited range while meeting their needs and functioning well. Others have a larger food range but still cannot eat enough consistently.

A 2025 meta analysis found substantial co-occurrence between autism and ARFID, although prevalence estimates varied across studies and many samples involved children or specialist services (Sader et al., 2025).

Professional assessment is important when food restriction affects health, nutrition, energy, independence or participation.

💊 Medication, Health and Appetite

ADHD medication can change appetite for some people, especially while the medication is most active.

Possible experiences include:

😶 reduced interest in food
🤢 nausea or dry mouth
⏳ hunger returning later in the day
🚨 suddenly intense evening hunger
📉 unintended weight change
🍽️ difficulty eating enough before appetite returns

Other medications can also increase or reduce appetite, affect digestion or change taste.

Do not change medication doses or timing without discussing it with the prescriber.

A useful medication review can include:

🕰️ when appetite is strongest and weakest
🍽️ whether regular intake is becoming difficult
📉 unintended physical changes
🤢 nausea, pain or digestive symptoms
🌙 effects on sleep
🔁 whether eating changes affect medication tolerability

Medication may improve the executive functioning needed to shop, prepare food and remember meals while simultaneously reducing appetite.

Both effects can be real.

🔬 What Research Currently Supports

🟢 Reasonably supported: Autistic people, as a group, report more interoceptive difficulties than comparison groups. A 2025 systematic review and meta analysis found overall differences, but results varied according to the interoceptive task and study design (Klein et al., 2025).

🟢 Reasonably supported: Adult autism research identifies eating differences involving sensory processing, routines, executive functioning, hunger and satiety, medical issues and eating environments. The qualitative evidence provides detailed lived experience but often uses small, self selected samples (Fiene & Brownlow, 2015; Kinnaird et al., 2019).

🟢 Reasonably supported: Autism and ARFID co-occur more often than chance would suggest in available clinical literature. Research does not show that sensory sensitivity or selective eating automatically becomes ARFID (Sader et al., 2025).

🟢 Reasonably supported: ADHD is associated with a higher risk of several eating disorders. The relationship is likely shaped by multiple pathways, including impulsivity, emotional regulation, executive functioning, medication and co-occurring mental health conditions (Nazar et al., 2016).

🟡 Tentative or mixed: Interoception may contribute to eating difficulties and eating disorder symptoms in autistic adults, but associations are complex. Self reported attention to the body, confidence in interpreting signals and objective performance are not interchangeable (Garfinkel et al., 2015; Westwood et al., 2026).

🟡 Emerging: A 2026 qualitative study of 20 autistic and AuDHD adults found that eating according to internal cues can be disrupted by unreliable body signals, cognitive demands, neuronormative expectations and weight stigma. Participants also described using several kinds of information, rather than hunger alone, to guide eating (Longhurst et al., 2026).

The evidence supports flexible, individual support. It does not justify one universal neurodivergent meal plan or the assumption that stronger body awareness is always the only goal.

🗺️ Mapping Your Eating Pattern Without Turning It Into Surveillance

A short period of observation can help identify which processes matter most.

The aim is not to count every bite, judge nutritional value or monitor weight.

You might record:

🕰️ roughly when eating became possible
🫀 what you noticed in your body beforehand
🧠 your attention and energy level
🎧 sensory factors
🍳 how much preparation the food required
😋 whether appetite was present
🌿 how you felt afterward
💊 relevant medication timing

Look for repeatable questions:

💭 Do I miss hunger mainly during hyperfocus?
💭 Does appetite disappear when I become overloaded?
💭 Are meals missed because no suitable food is available?
💭 Do reminders occur after decision making has already become difficult?
💭 Does eating become easier with company or harder through observation?
💭 Which foods remain accessible during low capacity?

Stop tracking if it increases obsession, shame, restriction or eating disorder thoughts.

Professional support is safer when self observation is becoming rigid or distressing.

⏰ Use External Structure Alongside Internal Signals

You do not need to choose between eating by the clock and listening to your body.

External structure can compensate when internal cues arrive late.

Possible anchors include:

☕ eating around an existing morning routine
🗓️ a food check between predictable activities
⏰ a reminder before the usual energy crash
🏠 eating shortly after arriving home
💊 linking a check with prescribed medication routines
🤝 sharing a regular meal with another person

A reminder does not need to mean:

💬 “You must eat a complete meal now.”

It can mean:

💬 “Pause and assess whether food or fluid would support the next part of the day.”

If hunger cues are unreliable, planned eating is not less authentic. It is using additional information to care for the body.

🍱 Build Food Around Real Capacity

Food systems often fail because they are designed for an ideal week.

Ingredients are purchased for meals that require planning, chopping, cooking and cleaning. When the low capacity day arrives, none of the food is usable.

Create several access levels.

🧃 Immediate Access

These options require almost no preparation.

They may include foods or drinks that can be opened and consumed safely without additional decisions.

🥪 Low Effort Access

These options require one or two familiar steps, such as heating, assembling or adding one ingredient.

🍳 Higher Capacity Access

These are meals you enjoy preparing when time, energy and sensory tolerance are available.

All three levels are legitimate food.

Convenience can protect nutrition, medication tolerance and emotional regulation. It is not a moral failure.

ADHD Grocery Shopping provides a more detailed guide to buying food that remains accessible after it reaches the kitchen.

🧭 Reduce Food Decisions Before Hunger Becomes Urgent

Decision making becomes harder as energy falls.

Create a small menu rather than requiring yourself to search every possible option.

For example:

🥣 two familiar morning options
🥪 three low effort meals
🧃 several immediate snacks or drinks
🧊 one or two freezer options
📦 one reliable order for difficult days

The menu should remain flexible. Its purpose is to reduce searching, not create a rule that must be followed.

Visual access can also help.

Food placed behind other items may stop existing in working memory. Keep commonly used options visible and store components near the point of use where safely possible.

🎧 Respect Safe Foods While Protecting Health

Safe foods can provide reliable access during overload, burnout and decision fatigue.

They should not automatically be removed in the name of variety.

A safe food may offer:

✅ predictable texture
✅ familiar taste
✅ known preparation
✅ low digestive uncertainty
✅ minimal executive demand
✅ confidence that eating will be possible

If nutritional adequacy or variety is a concern, begin from safety rather than taking it away.

A neurodivergence informed dietitian may help identify tolerable changes, supplements where clinically needed or foods with similar sensory properties.

Exposure to new foods should be collaborative, gradual and connected to a meaningful goal. Gagging, pain or panic are not evidence that someone needs more pressure.

🫀 Use Body Clues Without Demanding the Perfect Label

A body check can begin with observable features.

Ask:

🌡️ Do I feel cold, hot or shaky?
🧠 Is thinking becoming slower or more rigid?
🤢 Does my stomach feel empty, tense, nauseous or neutral?
⚡ Has irritability increased suddenly?
🪫 Has energy dropped?
🥤 Is my mouth dry or do I have a headache?

Then form a tentative hypothesis:

💬 “Food may be part of what I need.”
💬 “This could be thirst plus sensory overload.”
💬 “I may be hungry even though I have no appetite.”

You do not need to become certain before responding.

Interoceptive practice should be gentle. Repeatedly scanning the body can increase anxiety or eating disorder preoccupation for some people.

External routines may be safer and more useful than intensive body monitoring.

🤝 Make Social Eating More Accessible

Eating is often treated as a social activity, but social demands can reduce access to food.

You may find it easier to:

🪑 sit beside someone rather than opposite them
🔕 eat in a quieter area
📋 view a menu in advance
🥣 bring a reliable option
⏳ eat before an event rather than relying on uncertain food
🏠 join the social activity without eating the same meal
💬 explain that food preferences are sensory rather than personal rejection

A useful script is:

💬 “I would like to join you, but I need to bring food I know I can eat.”

Or:

💬 “Conversation and eating compete for my attention. I may be quieter while I eat.”

Belonging should not depend on consuming an unexpected food under observation.

🧑‍⚕️ When Professional Support Is Important

Seek medical or eating disorder informed support when you experience:

🚩 unintended or significant physical change
🚩 frequent dizziness, fainting, weakness or dehydration
🚩 persistent pain, vomiting, reflux or early fullness
🚩 choking, swallowing difficulty or fear of swallowing
🚩 a food range so restricted that nutrition or daily life is affected
🚩 repeated loss of control, purging or compensatory behaviour
🚩 strong weight or body image distress
🚩 inability to eat enough despite practical support
🚩 eating patterns that interfere substantially with work, relationships or healthcare

You do not need to look underweight or visibly ill to deserve assessment.

A support team may include:

🩺 a primary care clinician
🥗 a registered dietitian with neurodivergence and eating disorder knowledge
🧠 an adapted eating disorder therapist
🗣️ a speech and language professional when swallowing or oral motor difficulties are present
🛠️ an occupational therapist for sensory and daily activity barriers

Useful professional support should consider body signals, sensory needs, executive functioning, medical conditions and psychological factors together.

🪞 Reflection Questions

🍽️ At which stage does eating most often break down for you: noticing hunger, choosing food, preparing it, tolerating it or stopping comfortably?
🧠 Which signs tell you that you probably needed food or fluid earlier, even when hunger itself was unclear?
🛠️ What food or routine would become more accessible if it were designed for your lowest capacity days rather than your ideal ones?

🌿 Conclusion: Eating Does Not Need to Depend on Perfect Hunger Cues

Interoception helps people notice hunger, thirst, fullness and satisfaction.

It is not the only system involved in eating.

You can notice hunger and remain unable to prepare food. You can need nourishment without having an appetite. You can have a fridge full of ingredients and no accessible meal. You can rely on familiar foods because predictability allows you to eat at all.

Neurodivergent eating often sits at the intersection of body signals, attention, sensory processing, time and executive functioning.

This is why generic advice to listen to your body or plan better can fall short.

A more useful system uses several sources of information:

🫀 body clues
⏰ external timing
📋 known patterns
🎧 sensory access
💊 medication effects
🧠 current capacity
🩺 medical information

The aim is not to eat according to one perfect internal rhythm.

It is to make nourishment available before urgency, confusion or overload removes further choice.

Safe foods, reminders and convenience options are not failures of intuition. They can be the scaffolding that allows a body with inconsistent signals to receive consistent care.

At the same time, neurodivergence should not be used to explain away serious restriction, digestive symptoms or eating disorder distress. When eating affects health or functioning, assessment should examine the whole person rather than choosing between a neurological and psychological explanation.

Your body does not need to communicate perfectly before its needs count.

Support can begin while the signals are still unclear.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🫀 What does interoception have to do with eating?

Interoception helps you detect and interpret internal signals related to hunger, thirst, fullness, digestion and energy. Differences may cause these signals to feel delayed, vague, inconsistent or difficult to distinguish.

🚨 Why do I forget to eat until I feel shaky or sick?

Subtle hunger may not capture attention during hyperfocus or demanding activities. By the time the signal becomes intense, reduced energy can make choosing and preparing food harder. Interoception, time and executive functioning may all contribute.

🍽️ Can interoceptive differences affect fullness?

Yes. Some people notice fullness late, while others experience early fullness or confusing digestive sensations. Persistent pain, vomiting or major changes should receive medical assessment rather than being assumed to be neurodivergent.

🥣 Does eating mostly safe foods mean I have ARFID?

No. Safe foods and a limited range do not automatically indicate ARFID. Assessment considers nutritional or physical consequences, dependence on supplements and significant interference with daily or social functioning.

🎧 Should I force myself to eat foods with difficult textures?

Not simply for the purpose of appearing less selective. Severe sensory aversion deserves respect. When greater variety is medically useful, gradual and collaborative support is safer than pressure or removing reliable foods.

💊 Can ADHD medication make it harder to eat?

Yes. Some ADHD medications reduce appetite or cause nausea, particularly while active. Discuss persistent appetite loss, unintended physical change or difficulty eating enough with the prescriber. Do not alter medication independently.

🌿 Can intuitive eating work when my body signals are unreliable?

It may need adaptation. Internal cues can be combined with external timing, sensory knowledge, available energy and established patterns. Recent qualitative research suggests autistic and AuDHD adults often rely on several kinds of information rather than hunger alone.

🧑‍⚕️ When should I get professional help?

Seek support when eating causes significant distress, health changes, fainting, weakness, nutritional concerns, swallowing problems or major interference with daily life. Body image distress, purging, loss of control or fear around food also deserves assessment.

🧭 Where to Go Next

🫀 When Body Signals Are Difficult Across Daily Life

Read Interoception and Neurodivergence for hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, emotion and bathroom signals.

Continue with Proprioception and Interoception in ADHD and Autism for a deeper comparison of internal awareness and body position.

🛒 When Shopping and Food Preparation Are the Main Barriers

Use ADHD Grocery Shopping to buy meals rather than ingredients that remain inaccessible.

Read Autism and Grocery Shopping when sensory load, safe foods and unpredictable availability make shopping difficult.

🎧 When Texture and Sensory Access Are Central

Explore ADHD and Textures for food, clothing and everyday tactile sensitivity.

Continue with AuDHD Sensory Processing for sensitivity, seeking, low registration and changing thresholds.

🌫️ When Choice Becomes the Barrier

Read Decision Fatigue in Neurodivergent Adults when deciding what to eat becomes harder than eating itself.

🧠 When Feelings and Body States Are Hard to Separate

Explore Alexithymia in Neurodivergent Adults when hunger, anxiety, fatigue and emotion all feel like vague internal discomfort.

🧭 When You Need a Broader Foundation

Visit the Neurodiversity Learning Hub for routes through sensory processing, executive functioning, emotions, burnout and self care.

📚 References

📚 Fiene, L., and Brownlow, C. (2015). Investigating interoception and body awareness in adults with and without autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 8(6), 709–716.

📚 Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., and Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological Psychology, 104, 65–74.

📚 Kinnaird, E., Norton, C., Pimblett, C., Stewart, C., and Tchanturia, K. (2019). Eating as an autistic adult: An exploratory qualitative study. PLOS ONE, 14(8), Article e0221937.

📚 Klein, M., Witthöft, M., and Jungmann, S. M. (2025). Interoception in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, Article 1573263.

📚 Longhurst, P., Burnette, C. B., Cascio, M. A., Maloney, E., and Tylka, T. L. (2026). “I have to listen to whichever part of the body makes sense”: A qualitative study of intuitive eating in autistic/AuDHD people. Body Image, 58, Article 102140.

📚 Nazar, B. P., Bernardes, C., Peachey, G., Sergeant, J., Mattos, P., and Treasure, J. (2016). The risk of eating disorders comorbid with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 49(12), 1045–1057.

📚 Sader, M., Weston, A., Buchan, K., Kerr-Gaffney, J., Gillespie-Smith, K., Sharpe, H., and Duffy, F. (2025). The co-occurrence of autism and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder: A prevalence-based meta-analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 58(3), 473–488.

📚 Westwood, H., Mandy, W., and Brewer, R. (2026). The relationship between interoception, alexithymia, autistic traits and eating pathology in autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 56, 2574–2587.

📚 National Institute of Mental Health. (2026). Eating disorders: What you need to know.compassionate framework for caring for both your brain and your body.