Food Allergies Are Common With Autism

If your child is a picky eater this article from The Village Stream shows how it could be more than taste buds. Pam writes from experience with autism , food allergies and picky eaters. Read on to help your picky eater.

Picky picky picky!!!!

In many cases the picky food war is more than just personality, taste buds, or (gulp)mom’s cooking……it is often the sign of food allergies. If your child is in the process of overcoming autism, this is very likely the case.

Early in my daycare career, I had a little girl who had a sudden change in her behavior. Her sleep patterns changed; she became moody, and she had sudden outbursts of anger. Her parents took her to the doctor and the sleep disorder center but had no results. I knew that she was dealing with some form of pain because she would sit down, bend over, and hit her forehead on the floor, or beat on her own leg with hard toys… like blocks. One day as her mom carried her out to the car, she pulled out a handful of hair and handed it to her mom like a bouquet of flowers. Her mom drove straight to the doctor to check for an ear infection but could find nothing wrong; it was so frustrating.

I had a 4yr.old boy in my class at church who had similar behavior; he would get a deep frown, hit the other children randomly, and throw himself in the floor and roll back and forth kicking his legs over and over. I asked this boy why he was kicking like that..his answer was, that he just had to, because his legs hurt. We soon found out, thanks to a P.B.S. that both these children were allergic to milk. The parents who had them tested were so relieved . Had these allergies gone undetected they could have turned into asthma as well.

My youngest son was a picky eater. I could not reason with him when trying to introduce foods. My mother-in -law lived with us for a time. She gave him what he liked to see him smile, and handed him to me when the smile changed to excitable behavior. All the while telling me, that it was my imagination that this behavior existed, for behavior could not be effected by diet. This was not only hard at home, it made going out to eat anywhere almost impossible. Autistic children do not speak quietly in public when told no. Half the people look as if to say “spank that kid and shut him up” and the other half look at you like ” if you do, we’re calling the authorities!” We skipped a few things temporarily as I had to come to the realization that my son was different in how he reacted to life than his brothers, which meant I had to learn new methods in working with him.

My son craved the vitamins we bought him at the grocery store We had to hide them to keep him from going after them like candy. He craved American cheese slices, Star Crunches, and store-bought chocolate milk. He was allergic to all of it. We had to all agree to keep it out of the house, and not to cave in and give it to him while out. He didn’t have the will power, so we loved him enough to have it for him.

According to the Sage Laboratory in Florida, food allergies are always present in children with autism and each situation seems to be with a unique combinations of foods. This Lab has been studying this since the ’70’s. Finding the foods that are toxic to your child is well worth the effort because it will effect their behavior dramatically. If a food can affect a child’s mood, it is hard to say what else it could be doing to the over all health and well being of that same child.


Read the rest of Pam's post here.

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