a battle of the senses

For many autistic people I’ve met while working in an eating disorder charity, food restriction is less about appearance and more about survival. One individual described eating as “a battle with every sense”, illustrating how restriction can become a way to cope with an overwhelming world. Yet these experiences rarely appear in traditional models of Restrictive Eating Disorders (REDs), particularly Anorexia Nervosa (AN), which is often framed through weight and shape concerns (Kinnaird et al., 2019).

This gap is striking given that around 30% of people with AN screen positive for autism, compared with about 1% in the general population (İnal-Kaleli et al., 2024). Autism involves differences in…