This article delves into the complex relationship between ADHD and compulsive or overeating behaviours in children and teenagers, drawing on existing research, the lived experiences of others, and my experiences working with families as a dietitian. Understanding the unique ways in which neurodivergent kids interact with food and the societal pressures exacerbating these challenges, we can take a compassionate and practical approach to nurturing their well-being.
Food plays a far more significant role for humans than merely providing relief from hunger through calories and nutrients. It can regulate emotions, offer sensory comfort, and boost dopamine levels (the pleasure hormone) — while also serving as a cornerstone of culture, belonging, and rituals. Beyond these functions, food and eating (or not eating) profoundly influence our ability to focus, complete tasks, and experience internal comfort, such as gastrointestinal comfort.
ADHDers often differ in how they regulate emotions, focus on tasks, process sensory environments, and manage dopamine levels. They may also require support with building skills like executive functioning and interoception. While these differences are often discussed in the context of learning and development, they also have profound implications for eating behaviours.
Parents often contact me when they feel overwhelmed and uncertain about how to support their child with ADHD who is consuming large quantities of food (or is considered to be overeating or eating compulsively) or appears preoccupied with food. They frequently feel lost and unsure about how to assist their child without instilling shame or creating negative associations with food anxiety.
If you want to learn more, I'm also hosting a free webinar on ADHD and overeating behaviours in children.
Date & Time: Thursday, 27 February 2025, from 12 pm SGT.
Duration: 30 minute talk + 10min Q&A
Where: Online (link provided upon registration)
To register, click on the link. A recording will be made available afterwards for those who registered.
Together, we’ll explore why this topic matters, examine everyday scenarios contributing to these behaviours, and uncover actionable strategies to support your family and child. For instance, a child with ADHD may come home from school ravenous after not eating lunch (or having little interest in food due to stimulant medication), leading to episodes of “overeating.”
This article offers a compassionate lens to view and support the feeding and eating experiences of neurodivergent children and their families. Instead of pathologising overeating, we aim to understand the function of food and help children find an internal equilibrium with it.
Some of the things parents see that cause concern:
Eating quickly or stuffing food.
Sneaking or hiding food.
Not eating at mealtimes, but eating secretly or alone.
Eating large quantities (could be only at specific times of the day or when certain foods are available).
Becoming upset (or dysregulated) if someone eats off their plate or they have to share food.
Getting upset (or dysregulated) if food is limited or taken away.
Eating faster if asked to slow down.
Focusing on eating rather than playing at parties or playgrounds.
Continuously asking for specific food and finding ways to access particular foods.
Why Do We Need to Talk About It?
Research [1] highlights an alarming connection between ADHD and eating disorders (EDs). Children and adolescents with ADHD are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with binge eating disorder (BED), bulimia nervosa (BN), or anorexia nervosa (AN). In adults, ADHD traits not only increase ED prevalence but also intensify binge eating and bulimic behaviours, even when accounting for anxiety and depression. Additionally, neurodivergence often intersects with diverse gender and sexual identities, further compounding the risk of EDs and body image struggles [1].
These findings underscore the urgent need for early, compassionate, professional support. Without proper guidance, even well-intentioned interventions—particularly in a world steeped in diet culture—can unintentionally worsen a child’s vulnerability.
Diet culture is pervasive, shaping how we view bodies and eating habits. It glorifies thinness as a marker of health and moral virtue while stigmatising larger bodies and certain eating patterns. This harmful narrative infiltrates media, schools, healthcare, and everyday conversations, making it difficult to escape.[1]
Children growing up in this culture - especially those who eat differently or face well-meaning but misguided interventions—are at an even greater risk of developing eating disorders. This makes compassionate, informed support critical to their well-being.
As Ruth[1], reflects on her experience of being neurodivergent and developing an eating disorder:
“I felt alienated, inadequate, lonely, and confused. I would return from school as a ball of pent-up energy and emotion. It was at this time that I began to experience daily episodes of detached but frantic eating, terminated only by the physical impossibility of continuing. Prolonged and repeated experiences of social rejection left me vulnerable to seeking acceptance by whatever means necessary. I had already received the message from numerous external sources that being in a smaller body was somehow preferable. As my body grew in response to the regular binges, I began to receive negative feedback and encouragement to alter my body size through dieting.”
Common Scenarios in Practice
1. Natural Variations in Appetite and Body Size
People come in many shapes and sizes—and so do children. Some children naturally have larger appetites, while others have larger bodies. However, in a society deeply influenced by fatphobia and diet culture, these natural variations often trigger fear and anxiety in parents - particularly when your child with a larger appetite has a larger body. Pathologising these differences can create unnecessary food struggles and instil shame around eating.
While sudden weight changes that deviate from a child’s growth curve can indicate a medical issue and should be discussed with a healthcare professional, most children grow steadily along their growth curve. Body shape changes and weight gain associated with adolescence are normal and expected. Unfortunately, societal stigmas around weight gain can make these changes distressing for both parents and children, creating a space filled with anxiety and shame.
2. Internal Messaging Getting Lost: The Role of Interoception and Hyperfocus
Due to interoceptive differences, many individuals with ADHD struggle to recognise internal cues like hunger and fullness. They often miss signals throughout the day (especially when they become hyperfocused), only realising they are hungry when they are ravenous. At that point, eating tends to become hurried or overwhelming as the body tries to make up for missed meals.
Stimulant medications commonly prescribed for ADHD (and can be highly beneficial to some children) further complicate this issue. These medications suppress appetite during the day, leading to undereating in the morning and early afternoon. As the medication wears off, children often experience a “boomerang” effect, where hunger returns intensely, prompting compensatory eating to quickly meet their body’s needs.
Evelyn*, a 32-year-old with ADHD and Binge Eating Disorder, shares her memories from when she was growing up:
"I cannot count the number of times I've missed meals when my attention is focused on something of high interest or when teachers would tell me to eat, and I'd quickly say, "I'm not hungry" because of my difficulty to read my own body cues when in a stimulating environment".
3. Comfort Seeking, Emotional Regulation, and Stimulation Needs
Food often serves as an adaptive coping mechanism, offering sensory and emotional regulation. Eating enhances the release of neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine, promoting relaxation and soothing the effects of tension or trauma. For many children with ADHD, oral stimulation, such as chewing, also provides a calming effect, helping them to self-regulate.
Food can create a sense of safety and equilibrium. It’s common for children to come home from school feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, and exhausted, and food often becomes a simple and accessible way to find comfort and regain balance.
For children with ADHD, food serves another vital role: stimulation. Making food and eating engages multiple senses - taste, smell, sight - which can trigger dopamine release, providing a pleasurable boost to the brain. Chewing, in particular, has been shown to improve focus and enhance concentration by promoting alertness.
"I have vivid memories of walking to the fridge after school and staring inside, looking for a food that would 'make me feel happy' as I would get a dopamine hit from foods of certain colours, tastes or textures. " Evelyn*.
4. Food Over-restriction or Unavailability
Children experience food restrictions or unavailability for many reasons, sometimes unintentionally. Children with ADHD often have sensory processing differences that result in very specific likes and dislikes. They cannot adequately nourish themselves when these preferences aren't met, whether because the food isn’t available or parents have restricted it.
For example, school cafeterias may not accommodate their sensory needs or specific food preferences, leaving them without options they feel comfortable eating. When they have access to their preferred food (e.g., at a party or home), they often eat it in large quantities or sneak food.
Confounding Circumstances
Many of the previously mentioned scenarios don’t occur in isolation. Several overlapping factors can exacerbate challenges, making situations more complex and overwhelming:
Financial difficulty and/or household food insecurity.
Households or caregivers who need additional support with planning meals, grocery shopping, and making meals due to chronic illness, mental health challenges, and neurodivergence.
Homes where food has been charged, moralised, and labelled as “good” or “bad” or where strict food rules exist.
Parents or caregivers are entrenched in diet culture, restrictive eating patterns or eating disorders, and have unrealistic expectations of how much a growing child or teen needs to eat.
Parent(s) own struggles with food and negative body image.
Bullying (especially appearance-based).
School challenges. Studies show that children with ADHD receive significantly more negative feedback than neurotypical peers—up to 20,000 more critical comments by age 12 - further compounding their stress.
Sensory processing differences.
Characteristics and traits like impulsivity and Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD).
"Growing up in a home with strict rules around 'good' and 'bad ' foods and frequent comments about the 'healthy' foods I should be eating led me to become frenzied when in close proximity to 'bad foods'. After receiving negative feedback from my parents, helpers, and other friends' parents about my 'love of junk food' I started to become much more secretive and hide my overeating.” Evelyn*, ADHDer
Understanding these interconnected challenges is crucial for fostering a healthier relationship with food. By creating a non-judgmental and supportive environment that honours a child’s preferences and needs, parents can mitigate the impact of these factors and promote a more balanced and positive approach to eating.
What Parents Can Do: Reframing Our Approach to Food and Neurodivergence
A compassionate approach to food for children with ADHD involves addressing challenges with understanding, empathy, and actionable strategies. Here’s how parents can reframe their behaviours to support their children better:
1. Remove shame fear and guilt around food and bodies.
Normalise all foods and avoid labelling them as “good” or “bad.” Removing shame and guilt around eating is critical for helping children develop a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. When children feel safe and accepted, they are better able to trust their internal cues and explore food without fear or judgment.
Acknowledging natural variations in appetite and body size and trusting in the body’s ability to grow and change is essential. This approach helps parents foster a healthier relationship with food and support their children through critical developmental phases.
But don’t just take my word for it. Let’s listen to what kids have to say.
From the Body Kind Youth Report 20234 (Australia)[4], which surveyed 1,635 participants aged 12-18 (17% of whom had ADHD) on what they think is needed for children to feel better about their bodies:
“Educate parents and caregivers about the importance of positive body image and how to support their children.”
“Tell them that your body is beautiful but has nothing to do with you as a person. Your personality and the person you are is the reason you are beautiful, not what you look like.”
“To not create body standards in the first place because that’s where the issue started. Why does a size 4 body look better than a size 10 body? Why do you have to change your appearance to look good? Why can’t everyone just accept everyone for who they are?”
2. Adding in nutrition support
Support your child with consistent and balanced nutrition. Some strategies include:
Create a flexible structure with regular meals and snacks (eating opportunity every 2-3 hours for younger children or 3-4 hours for older kids). Regular eating patterns help address interoceptive challenges and prevent compensatory eating, which often occurs later in the day.
Aim to create balanced meals and snacks that encompass carbohydrates, protein, fibre, and fat. This often entails adding fibre, fat, or protein to meals and snacks. For example, a child might have a bowl of oats for breakfast. However, this offers little staying power as it lacks sufficient protein and fat. Adding nut butter or nuts, preparing the oats with milk, and including fruit make your child more likely to feel satisfied.
Food should taste good and speak to the senses: add flavour, spice, colour, and crunch.
Additionally, consider the impact of ADHD medications, which may suppress appetite during the day. Discuss medication timing with your healthcare provider and introduce reminders to eat.
These strategies often require individualisation, especially if your child has sensory processing differences or strong likes and dislikes. If you want to learn more about how I can provide 1-on-1 support, you can book a Free Discovery Call here.
3. Expand Their Regulation and Stimulation Toolbox
Help your child create a sensory “diet” by incorporating activities that provide regulation and stimulation throughout the day and perhaps are needed at specific times. This might include:
Oral stimulation (e.g., chewing gum, straw water bottle, sparkling water).
Physical activities (often called “heavy work”), like jumping, running, or dancing, can release dopamine and help with emotional regulation.
Sensory interventions tailored to your child’s unique needs include stimulating fidget tools, calming deep pressure or soothing textures.
These strategies are often best discussed with an occupational therapist who is knowledgeable about sensory regulation techniques. I frequently collaborate with other therapists to ensure our strategies and interventions align. This is why individual, personalised support is often needed.
Final Thoughts
Understanding the connections between ADHD and overeating can help us move away from control-based or compliance approaches and toward compassion and connection.
Removing shame, promoting food neutrality, and addressing underlying needs can help children develop healthier relationships with food and their bodies. When clinicians and caregivers work together to understand medical, behavioural, developmental, and familial factors, they can create holistic, effective interventions.
*A special thank you to Evelyn (name changed) for sharing her experiences. Evelyn, is a 32-year-old with ADHD diagnosed in adulthood who has had a Binge Eating Disorder since adolescence. Her story reflects personal perspectives and may not apply universally.
References:
Cobbaert, L., Millichamp, A.R., Elwyn, R. et al. Neurodivergence, intersectionality, and eating disorders: a lived experience-led narrative review. J Eat Disord 12, 187 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-024-01126-5
EDRD Pro Webinar: Nutrition Therapy Approaches to Compulsive Eating In Kids, by Heather Bell, MPH RD LDN, October 2024.
Rowell, K. Love me, Feed me. 2nd Edition. 2023. Family Feeding Dynamics
Butterfly Foundation (2023). Body Kind Youth Survey: Your body image, Your voice 2023 report. Retrieved from http://www.butterfly.org.au/youthsurveyfindings
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