Why your ADHD child struggles with food, with Natalie Fox – Food For Kids Podcast episode 47

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. In today's episode, I have a super helpful interview with Natalie Fox. She's a dietitian and content creator on TikTok and Instagram, and she specialises in helping people with ADHD to cultivate a shame-free, joyful relationship with food and to help them figure out how to work with their brains so that they can make eating well easier and more ADHD friendly supportive.

I've followed Natalie's content for a while now and I've found she's really good at breaking down why food-related routines and aspirations come off the rails so often for ADHDers when they try to follow standard food advice. And she's also very non-judgmental and realistic about ways to build up systems and tools that are more ADHD friendly. I wanted to bring her TikTok advice to my podcast audience and she very kindly agreed to an interview, so let's hear it.

Joanne Roach (01:10)

So Natalie, I know that you mostly work with adults with ADHD, but I have personally found a lot of your explanations of ADHD can affect relationships with food really helpful for me to understand my child who has ADHD and to be able to help them and give them a bit more grace. So for parents who are listening who have a child who's been diagnosed or they suspect they have ADHD, can you please explain why people with ADHD can find it hard to eat well?

Natalie Fox MS, RD (01:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so there's a number of reasons why it can be really challenging. One of the really big ones has to do with hunger cues. So a lot of folks with ADHD may have poor body interoception which means that it's either really difficult for them to feel hunger and fullness and to recognize those signals as being hunger and fullness.

Or additionally, the other part of it is that sometimes it's hard to prioritize those hunger cues when they do show up until they're very, very pressing. So what that often ends up looking like is that either they don't feel hungry or they do feel hungry, but they don't know it's hunger or they don't feel like it's important enough to act on until they're so hungry that they're starving. So sometimes it can create an eating pattern where all day you're not eating much. And at the end of the day, it's like,

my God, I'm gonna pass out, I'm so cranky, I'm grumpy, I'm gonna eat everything in sight. And if folks are on ADHD medications like Adderall or Vyvanse (Elvanse) or Ritalin, that further exacerbates this dynamic because those medications have an appetite suppressing effect, which makes it even harder to feel your body's cues. It also confuses things on the satiety side because if you get to that level of hunger, you're more likely to eat very quickly.

you're more likely to eat way past the point where you're full and it's hard for that signal to reach your brain. Also, if you've not had enough nutrition earlier in the day, your body down-regulates satiety cues. So those cues come late, they may not be correct to the amount of food that you need to feel satisfied. So sometimes that can lead to challenges on the other side of things too.

Joanne Roach (03:08)

Okay, so that's that's why you might see children that don't want to eat when they're playing a game or something like that. And then they're snacking before tea, eating their tea, snacking after tea, wanting to snack at bedtime.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (03:12)

Hmm.

Yep. Yep. It's basically their body's way to compensate for the fact that their attention was on other things during the day and it just didn't feel like it was as important as the thing that's right in front of them. Right? it's their body's way of compensating for that calorie deficit. Our bodies are really sophisticated. So that's one of the challenges I think that can come up. A lot of kids may have particularities around taste or texture also. If they have ADHD, especially if they have ADHD and they're somewhere on the autism spectrum, like more picky eating or they might not accept certain foods. ⁓ And then the other part of it too, and this is more, I think for older children, can be a lot of the decision fatigue and task burden that's involved in eating. So just deciding what sounds good and what you want to eat can be a very cognitively challenging thing to do. So if you're like, I got to think about all these options I want to eat, and I don't know what sounds good and nothing sounds good, then it's a lot easier for them to just put off eating And if they're having to make their own meals or snacks, the tasks involved can also be too much of a barrier for them to do that and it's just easier for their brain to put it off.

Joanne Roach (04:22)

Okay, so if a child or indeed some of the parents listening as well have ADHD, how might that show up kind of in an average day of family food?

Natalie Fox MS, RD (04:31)

So again, that can look like refusing meals earlier in the day, only having a couple bites and then running off to go do something else. That can look like not wanting the food that's being offered potentially. That can look like, eating a lot more at night, wanting snacks before and after dinner, just like you were describing, Really, hyper fixating on certain foods for a period of time and then never want to touch that again is also a very common experience. So sometimes you feel like, ⁓ great, we found this great snack and this great meal that my kid likes and they eat and you're like leaning into it. And then one day it's like, absolutely not. can't have it. Now we need something different. That can be a very frustrating experience that adults and kids can encounter.

Joanne Roach (04:54)

Yep.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (05:08)

The other way that it can really show up too is that for a lot of folks who are on any neurodivergent spectrum, food can also be a way to meet stimulation needs. you know, if people are overstimulated, eating can bring that down and kind of decompress. And if you're under stimulated, food can give me a pick me up. That can show up in a couple of ways. So the person who is not eating all day and then just wanting lots and lots of snacks and really wanting to chew and munch. Sometimes that eating can be a way to dissipate anxious energy and to decompress, especially kids who are drawn to really big tastes and textures. So a lot of snack foods that have that really high dopamine input, can be helping them regulate their stimulation needs.

Joanne Roach (05:42)

Okay.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (05:53)

And likewise, it can also help kids focus if they're doing tedious tasks. So this might be the person who needs to snack in order to get through homework. That snacking may actually be part of what's helping them finish their tasks.

Joanne Roach (06:06)

I saw a stitch that you did with a psychologist about restraint collapse, if you're at work all day being on your best behavior or for children being on the best behavior at school, when they get home, obviously their behavior can go downhill a little bit.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (06:15)

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. So when we're thinking about over-stimulation, that's the dynamic that we're talking about. Doing and managing all of those inputs through the day, trying to stay focused, trying to keep it together, having to manage all of the different tasks they have to deal with in school, that is so cognitively draining. That just completely tanks executive function. And so coming home and dropping all of that need to perform a certain way or be a certain way, is so necessary, you know, and food is a really, really, really helpful tool in helping dissipate that energy that's been, building up because of their need to mask.

Joanne Roach (06:51)

So having some grace for the after school snack being more comforting is probably a good way to go.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (06:56)

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Having some grace, I think recognizing that food is a tool is really important. It's not just, my kid likes lots of snacks. This is functionally serving the way that their brain is working. And maybe there are ways that you can talk about skill building to find other things that also calm their nervous system that are also gonna provide that stimulatory benefit.

That can be really helpful to put in, but I always, I say this for adults, but I think it's especially true for children, not coming at that work of how else can we support you and your needs? The goal of that shouldn't be that you're never gonna snack, because then we're vilifying food It should be, okay, snack's part of it, and then what else can we help with regulation so that you have a robust toolbox.

Joanne Roach (07:44)

So giving people a menu of ways to help themselves rather than suggesting that eating for emotional or stimulation needs is somehow wrong.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (07:52)

Yes, exactly, exactly. And even not eating, you can think about what that looks like. Can we explore lots of different foods so that you have a plate full of different things, including the preferred stuff, right? So can it be chips or crisps for the UK audience? Can it be those? And can it also be other things that are crunchy, crispy that might help meet the nutrition needs as well? So it's a little bit of everything.

Joanne Roach (08:06)

Yep.

And have you got any other suggestions for practical ways that parents can help their kids to understand their needs when they're getting prepared to kind of leave home? So thinking ahead to how they're going to be able to cope at college or when they're living by themselves.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (08:23)

Yeah.

Absolutely. ⁓ So the first thing is that I always like to emphasize is that no eating is bad. It doesn't matter how you're eating or why you're eating, you're meeting some need and that's really important to acknowledge. And so I think that sometimes people can get into the mindset of this kind of eating is bad or these foods are bad and you shouldn't do it as opposed to really thinking about:

What is it that my brain needs and what is it that my body needs and how can I best meet those together? So for example, for the kiddo who's going off to college and really needs snacking to help them focus, I mean, that was absolutely me. You know, not vilifying that and trying to stop it, but saying, okay, if I'm using this as a tool and it's okay that I'm snacking, how can I make that look like something that's going to give me that same benefit, but maybe it's also gonna give me other benefits and meet other needs as well, right?

And I think that for a lot of folks who do use food as tools, the framework, I see this on TikTok sometimes, and I love it, is the "have what you want, add what you need" can be a really gentle way of approaching that. It's just how can we expand foods in an increased variety as opposed to necessarily removing or replacing? It can be really great.

Joanne Roach (09:32)

Okay, so when my daughter went to uni and she was living in very small university accommodation with very poor kitchen facilities but she had a little fridge in her room with snacks in, and so we added in things like little chicken satay things and yogurts there were crisps and the crisps were fine, there were kind of snacky items, crackers and so on, but we added in a bit of a range so that if she was in her room and couldn't face going into that communal kitchen there was more of a range for her to pick from.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (10:00)

Absolutely. It's like, how would you think about nutrition if snacking is the plan? Right? You know, I think sometimes we go snacking shouldn't be the plan. So we're not going to do any of that. And then we're left with nothing. And then we go back to the snack foods as opposed to saying, OK, my plan is snacking. My plan is that it's OK, and I'm going to do it. What would it look like if that was plan A and not an unfortunate consequence of not being prepared?

Joanne Roach (10:04)

Yeah.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (10:20)

Right, how can we have things available that are gonna meet a variety of needs in a very low pressure way and accept that that's what our brain needs sometimes and not trying to fit a specific eating pattern.

The other part that I think is really helpful is to have there be a connection in young folks' mind to nourishment and how that affects your executive function because I think for a lot of people that under-eating during the day and not prioritizing eating during the day, if that's the pattern that folks have, can have a really big impact on executive function, on the ability to focus, on mental clarity, on our emotional state, on how overstimulated we might get by the end of the day. And so I think that for some people, it's hard for your brain to prioritize eating if it doesn't feel pressing, but if you can connect that eating is going to make you function better. Sometimes that's very helpful in helping them figure out, okay, how can I get in a small snack here and a small snack there to get more fuel for my brain earlier in the day,

But, also supporting them and saying it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It doesn't have to be this perfect meal. It can be small snacks. And if they struggle with figuring out where to put that in, transitions between activities can be a great place to put cues to remind them just to have a granola bar or have a yogurt or have something like that to keep them going.

Joanne Roach (11:35)

Okay, so they've got something in their backpack, if they're walking between lectures, or they're going from their job to the times to think about putting food into those moments.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (11:44)

Yes, exactly. A lot of the health advice is very “this is the right way and you have to do it the right way and you have to figure out how to do it the right way”. But I feel like a lot of times that pursuit is so overwhelming and so exhausting that a lot of times when people do it, they try to fit those food rules it backfires in a big way. So I have seen this especially in some of the younger clients that I've worked with. Like I've worked with some folks who are in college and it's just the task burden and the mental effort that's required to do that is so much that they become avoidant. And then it usually, in my experience, can often lead to binging in the evening time on foods that maybe don't make them feel super good. And then it can become a cycle as opposed to saying, okay, what can I eat? What will I enjoy, but maybe will be a step towards some of my other goals. And just getting those small steps in place and realizing it doesn't have to be all or nothing often leads people to a much healthier lifestyle that feels better because it's not, so mentally draining to think about and upkeep.

Joanne Roach (12:42)

I understand you have a course to help people who have ADHD to help them with their relationship with food.

Natalie Fox MS, RD (12:47)

⁓ Yeah, so I have a course currently that's out that is really focused on the logistics of eating. So it's how can I make nourishing myself easier and more ADHD supportive? How can I kind of let go some of these rules and find a system that meets my brain and my lifestyle that doesn't feel like it's requiring every last drop of my available executive function to maintain? So it breaks down all the different challenges that people can come to the counter with from meal planning to grocery shopping to actually cooking the food to cleaning up after to eating it and having options that that feel like they work for you. So it's just a way to again break free from a lot of the food rules people think that they have to have and figure out a personalized way for them to feed themselves easier basically. And it's a series of very short videos so people can go in and target exactly the challenges they have.

There's a lot of worksheets and resource sheets that people can fill out and make it customized to them so that hopefully by the end of it, they'll have a lot of tools in their toolbox

Joanne Roach (13:47)

Fantastic I'll link to that in the show notes.

Joanne Roach (13:54)

I hope you found that as comforting and enlightening as I did if you have a child with ADHD in your life and if you don't but you know someone who does then I would love it if you would pass on this episode to them so they can find Natalie's content. I particularly like the focus on the "have what you want and add what you need" idea that she talked about of starting with something that is going to work for you and then try and add in helpful and health supporting extras rather than trying to achieve some kind of perfectionist idea of what your food should look like.

I actually bought Natalie's course to help our family. It's called the ADHD guide to getting fed. It's honestly really practical and incredibly affordable. So I'll link to her website in the show notes if you want to check that out for yourselves. I'll also link to her Instagram and TikTok if you want to pass it on to someone who you know could use some daily ADHD friendly snippets.

Do come on over to the Instagram post about this episode and tell me what you found helpful. I'll be back on Monday with another episode and I hope to see you then and in the meantime, happy eating!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:10 Interview with Natalie Fox, RD

01:37 Why ADHD can make it more difficult to eat well

04:31 How ADHD can show up in food behaviour

06:19 Why food can be a useful tool for ADHDers

08:14 Teaching children with ADHD to feed themselves as adults

12:42 Natalie's course

13:53 Summary and outro