“If We Are What We Eat, Where Does That Leave Us?”

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Lawrence, C. & Waller, R. (2025). “If We Are What We Eat, Where Does That Leave Us?”. In Applications and Practices for Empowering Neurodivergent Learners (pp. 399-422). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3373-4445-4.ch014 · ISBN : 9798337344454

Publication date: 25 Jul 2025 Added to AutiHub: 18 Sep 2026 Type: Book chapter Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
2
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 2 (50.0%)
  1. Clare Lawrence *
  2. Rebekah Waller

Abstract

The ‘simple' act of eating can become an issue of intense anxiety for autistic people. Many autistic people meet the criteria for ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), and parents of autistic children express their concerns around meeting their children's nutritional needs. However, consideration of food issues remains little explored from the autistic viewpoint and supports that might lead to more comfortable eating in institutional spaces such as schools and care homes are seldom addressed. This chapter explores the subject from the insider perspective, articulating some of the background to so-called ‘disordered eating' in autism, and suggests a more respectful approach to the provision of food in these spaces through a toolkit of accommodations that might be made to enable autistic people to eat more comfortably.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 28 Oct 2026 01:01.

Cited references
34
With a DOI
28
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
6
9 / 34 (26.5%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
6 / 34 (17.6%)
References with detected author names
30 / 34 (88.2%)
Without detected author names
4
Without a structured title
6
Without a stable identifier
6
References with raw author names still to review
4
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
127
From DOI or external metadata
127
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
5
36 / 127 (28.3%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 91 / 127 (71.7%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
12 / 127 (9.4%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 12 / 36 (33.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 10 / 119 (8.4%).
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