Concerning food

I recently was asked for some advice by a friend on Facebook who also has a son on the autism spectrum.  Her son tends to overeat, in an unhealthy, binge sort of way, even for a pre-teen.  My response to her made me think a lot about the food struggles we've had with Bucket over the years and everything we deal with now.

Here is what I wrote her:

My autistic son has had the opposite problem his whole life- only wants to eat a few things and skinny as can be... and then puberty hit and he was HUNGRY, but didn't want to eat most things, he just wanted junk and carbs. Not good long term choices and definitely not the habits I wanted him forming. It was hard but I gave him the option of eating healthy or going hungry and had very clear expectations and consequences for if he was taking food without permission (he has to ask for food, he's never allowed to just help himself. And the only junk food in the house has to be purchased with our household token economy, same as screen time, and he has to work to earn the tickets to "buy" such things). Eating is an even bigger thing now. He's 14 and CONSTANTLY hungry and CONSTANTLY eating and growing like a weed. The upside is the last two years of really fighting things means he'll eat a lot more foods now without complaint and knows he is expected to eat the healthy things we have on hand or go hungry (he'll even ASK to have salad - ok it's plain lettuce with croutons, and I have to monitor the number of croutons, but it's still MAJOR progress!). I still OFTEN get told how terrible I am when he asks for food and I say "you can have an apple" or "you can scramble three eggs" or "no, you can wait for dinner". He wants to just help himself to crazy amounts of the things he loves (like 8 hot dogs in a sitting). I look at it as he is in training for now... I monitor, reinforce, follow up, etc, while he learns how to make better choices. I make sure he gets plenty of veggies and some protein with every meal/snack. We also have frequent talks about WHY we have these rules, how our food choices affect our bodies, etc.  I'm hoping (like with most things) eventually he'll need less and less monitoring because he's learned to monitor himself better. I just remind myself that given he's on the spectrum, it will probably take a little longer, as he learns to work with/around/through his fixations and sensory things.

One of the things I really push with Bucket is education - why eating healthy, exercise, hygiene, etc. is important... more than avoiding the stigma of being overweight, I want him to be aware of the long-term consequences of his choices - eat and exercise NOW for the body and health you want when your 40, or 80. It's probably an impossible lesson for a teenager to grasp because middle age seems so very far away, but I keep at it. It helps that there's a STRONG family history of diabetes on my husband's side and my kids have seen first-hand what it does to you as they watch their grandmother deal with diabetic complications. They've also been able to see how my dad's weight affects his mobility and health. And we get to compare all that to their great-grandmother who still goes to the gym every day. 

She commented back about the difficulty in dealing with these things and I replied:

Yes. very. You would think that after TWO YEARS I wouldn't have to fight the food battle EVERY DAY. But I do. In fact, in some ways it feels worse (partly because he's home from school all day now) because every 30-60 minutes I have him asking for food and pushing boundaries and getting mad (or melting down) when he doesn't get what he wants. It's hard enough to "stay strong" as a mom... without the constant, over and over and over and over that the spectrum gives you.....




I remember how my mother used to joke about what a blessing it was for my brother to serve lunch at school because it meant he could eat as much as he wanted and she didn't have to pay for it.  He could eat as much of the "left-over" pizza as he wanted and often ate at least a whole pizza.  It saved her untold millions on her food bill.  I knew teen aged boys ate - and ate A LOT.  But there is a big difference between having an academic understanding and LIVING it.  Especially when that boy is extra sensitive - feels his hunger pains more strongly - and tends toward fixations - fixated on the fact that he feels hunger, fixated on the fact that he wants food, fixated on what he wants to eat.  I am LITERALLY feeding this boy every 30 to 60 minutes.  Every time I turn around he is asking for food, complaining about what I tell him he can eat, asking what we're having for the next meal...

 and trying to weasel his way out of our screen-time rules.

But that's another story.