Autism and obesity

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so many factors.

We tend to earn less money, so poverty plays a big role in peoples' diets & thus many of us eat poorly, resulting in weight gain.

Fatigue symptoms may prevent some from being active enough.

Comfort eating/low impulse control.

Limited diet due to sensory issues whether taste or texture etc.

And, IMO, it's not just fat mass gain.. IMO, a part of the measurable statistic is very likely due to intestinal bloating caused by diet/gut dysbiosis. It's science. I Know that when my diet is poor this happens to me & I gain "weight," right In my gut, not fat mass around it, but noticeable mass gain in my large intestine that becomes obviously bloated & expanded. If I eat super clean and healthy with plenty of fibre and water, this doesn't happen.

unrelieved stress eventually leads to chronically elevated cortisol and adrenal exhaustion. obesity comes along for the ride.

Yes, that, too.

Seems kinda lame that the article doesn't list all of these potential explanations that we're able to come up with fairly easily.

the author had a quick deadline for publishing. we can do this more at our leisure, most likely, hence more plausible answers.

my last answer directly related to my own experience.

I don't know why this is being twisted into all autistic people being obese. They said nearly half the American kids with autism and they also said autistic children are more likely to get obese. It's very clear in this study that not all autistic kids were overweight, they just found it's higher among autistic kids compared to non autistic kids.


I was a skinny kid, eating was never my interest and I only ate when I was hungry and stopped when I lost interest. Maybe that was just me being satisfied and even trying to make me clean my plate didn't make me eat. Then I put on weight in 6th grade and I was the overweight child. I ate for the taste and then I stopped doing that and the weight piled off. I was also on meds that made me hungry all the time so I ate twice as much and gained like 20 lbs in one month according to my mother. That is like 5 lbs a week so that must have been a lot of food I was eating in one day to gain 5 lbs. I never looked fat but I was still overweight and considered obese when I was 13 even though I didn't look fat. I wasn't fat enough for people to not say I wasn't fat. Most of my weight goes to my butt and thighs and everything else stays small. I had to work at getting skinny again and that was calorie counting and trying to be active and not eating for enjoyment. I started to work on my weight in 7th grade and that was I quit snacking, I quit eating until I felt full, I started to limit junk food, I started to go on walks around the field, I started to have salads at lunch instead and I dropped 20 lbs and stayed there for two years and then I started losing again by restricting more food and doing calorie counting and doing more stimming to burn calories and I did PE and softball and then I gained some again and lost it again and gained a little and lost it again and was starting to gain it back and then I started to work out again and I lost weight again.

Only reason why my other weight has stayed off is because I don't eat for taste or eat sweets all the time for the taste or keep eating until my tummy feels uncomfortable. I do everything in moderation and if I have a big meal, I just don't eat again all day until evening and it's something very small like a snack.

You don't need to eat healthy foods to lose weight, it's all about calories in and calories out. Just as long as you have calories less than your body uses a day, you will lose weight. It doesn't matter what you eat. You can eat fast food and still lose weight if you keep it below your TDEE.

You might feel hungry all the time while restricting because you are not eating the right foods and sugar runs through you fast so you are hungry again not too long later.

Even exercising will help because it will help with your weight and TDEE.

I’ve always had a problem with weight.I’m active, eat healthy foods from the garden,but I’m still plump.
I think it’s my eating habits.I hate breakfast,don’t get hungry till late in the day.I think this pattern is from childhood.The usual breakfast foods tasted bad, too greasy,too salty,weird texture ,and I didn’t like milk.I sometimes would eat oatmeal,grits or cream of wheat,but it was easier to just not eat.I didn’t like the school food,so usually didn’t eat most of it.Later when you didn’t have to go to the cafeteria,I’d just go directly to the playground.The noise in the cafeteria bothered me so much.I hate the murmur of mass voices and the clink of silverware.
So I never ate till I got home from school.Rarely did I eat fast food,we might go to a nice restaurant for Sunday dinner or an occasional bucket of KFC as a treat.I liked vegetables,and we always had fresh fruit.But mostly it was Southern comfort food like chicken and dumplings,meatloaf, always lots of greens on the side.Cooked with pork of course and seasoned with pepper sauce,hot cornbread with butter,and mashed potatoes and gravy, pinto beans or butter beans with ham hock.Heavy on carbs and fat.So I’d eat too much late in the day.I still do.
And I love homemade bread,corn bread, buttermilk biscuits,light bread,yummy.I love to bake, so tend to overindulgence when I do.
I get a yearly physical, all good except for slightly high triglycerides.So I’ve given up most meats instead of taking medication.It is already lower than last years.
So my thought are that bad eating habits and medication would be the main reason why some,not all,struggle with weight issues.

Probably because we Autistics love food especially sweet and comfort food. Especially chicken nuggets.

Last edited by Dylanperr on 19 Feb 2019, 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

if it tastes good, chances are it ain't so good for you.

might be correlated a little bit with ocd but idk

None of this surprises me. Most people on the spectrum, from what I've gathered, aren't the most athletic of sorts. We also tend to be picky eaters and have bad diets.

I've been fat most of my life. Though I've recently lost about 140 pounds.

^^^ 140# that is excellent

YAY!! !

I've had problems with my weight my whole life. But for ages I heard autistic people were more likely to be underweight and anorexic because we're supposedly such finicky eaters. Guess it depends on what foods you do eat, and usually the one food you're not finicky about is salad, you're going to get fat.

I'll bet soon they'll have laws banning fat people from public places like they used to have laws banning "ugly" people years ago.

When food is one of the few things that gives you any real emotional pleasure because you suffer from boredom, depression, and anxiety, you eat it even when you're not hungry. That's why bullying and shaming people because of their weight rarely makes them actually work at losing it. And that's completely your fault.

When you hate most sports and physical activities and barely have the motor skills to do any of them anyway, that also makes you gain weight. Of course, it's your fault, too.

My mom was thin and very active. My brother was thin and could eat whatever he wanted but I couldn't. My dad is overweight but since he was an adult he could decide for himself whether to work at losing weight.

Meanwhile, the voices that induce guilt and shame every time I eat anything and tell me I should just purge myself refuse to shut up no longer how much I ignore them.

I've learned to cook all sorts of food I like to eat without gaining weight. I do practice portion control, and like to freeze freshly baked goods for eating at a later time.