Autism and Nutrition: Understanding Neurodivergent Needs
April is Autism Awareness Month. It’s a time to expand the conversation — not just about awareness but about acceptance, access, and supportive care. As dietitians, we work with autistic individuals to help them navigate food in ways that are different from typical nutrition advice. This makes sense because most nutrition advice isn’t written with neurodivergent needs in mind. Autism and nutrition intersect in complex ways. Eating can be complicated when you're managing sensory sensitivities, executive dysfunction, burnout, or food routines that others may not understand. This month, we’re highlighting some of the common barriers around nourishment and the supports that can make things more doable.
Executive dysfunction can make food hard.
Executive functioning with food includes all the steps of food planning and preparation. Deciding what to eat, remembering to eat, figuring out what’s in the fridge, and following a recipe. These things take energy, organization, and focus. When executive function is stretched thin (or just wired differently), food tasks can feel impossible.
Some tools for combating this are using reminders, meal templates, or prepped foods to make things easier. Others benefit from a structure that’s consistent but not rigid. It’s not about forcing a routine but about finding systems that feel supportive and flexible. Sometimes, this means working with a dietitian. Sometimes, it means bringing in an executive functioning coach, therapist, or occupational therapist. There’s no one right way.
2. Sensory sensitivity and sensory seeking play a big role.
Food involves every sense: taste, texture, smell, sound, even how it looks. For some, certain foods are completely off the table because they’re overwhelming or even painful. For others, strong flavors or crunchy textures feel calming or regulating. None of this is wrong or shameful. It’s information. It’s lived experience. You know yourself and your body best, and it’s important that your knowledge is honored.
Instead of trying to override sensory needs, we work with them. That might mean honoring a limited set of safe foods, experimenting with new versions of familiar textures, or learning what sensory input supports regulation before, during, or after eating. Collaboration with an occupational therapist or a speech-language pathologist can be helpful if that feels right, but it’s always a choice, not a requirement.
3. Repetition and routine aren’t a problem to fix.
Eating the same meals every day isn’t a red flag. For many neurodivergent folks, repetition is part of how the nervous system finds stability. There might be room for variety, but only if it feels safe and helpful. We’re not interested in forcing change for the sake of it. The goal is to make sure you’re getting enough nourishment, not to meet some arbitrary standard of food diversity (which also feeds into the idea of a food hierarchy that leaves us feeling more guilt or shame with food — learn more about food neutrality here).
4. A team approach often works best.
Nutrition is complex and multifactorial. For many people, challenges around food are tied to things like anxiety, trauma, GI symptoms, depression, or sensory processing. Isolation can prevent us from thriving when these factors are at hand. That’s why working with other providers, such as mental health therapists, primary care, occupational therapists, and others, can be such an important part of care. We don’t all do the same thing, and that’s a good thing! The key is to build a network of support, not to carry everything alone.
5. Care should feel like care.
So much of what’s written about food and autism is either pathologizing or patronizing.
By pathologizing, we mean treating common neurodivergent experiences (like eating the same meal every day, having strong food preferences, or struggling to follow multistep recipes) as symptoms to “fix” rather than adaptations to understand. It implies something is broken when, really, many people are doing what they can to survive and regulate in a world that doesn’t always meet their needs.
By patronizing, we mean the way nutrition advice is often directed at autistic people instead of with them. It tends to assume a lack of understanding or agency, like telling someone to “just try a bite” or celebrating tiny exposures to new foods without consent or curiosity about their actual goals. It reduces people to their food choices and overlooks the autonomy, intelligence, and self-awareness that neurodivergent folks bring to the table.
This kind of messaging often centers on neurotypical comfort (what makes others feel better about how someone eats) rather than supporting the actual person with lived experience. It creates pressure to perform a “normal” relationship with food instead of helping people build a relationship that feels safe, sustainable, and nourishing on their own terms.
We believe there’s a different way: one rooted in respect, collaboration, and an understanding that there are many valid ways to feed yourself. You deserve care that respects your autonomy, values your lived experience, and doesn’t try to fix what isn’t broken.
If any of this resonates with you, know that you’re not alone. And there are providers out there who want to work with you, not against you.
