Autism and eating disorders can create a complicated relationship with food rigidity, routines, sensory needs, and predictability. For autistic people recovering from anorexia, ARFID, bulimia, or other eating disorders, repetitive eating patterns aren't always symptoms that need to be challenged. Sometimes autistic food routines and preferred foods make consistent nourishment more accessible.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores the difference between autistic food rigidity and eating disorder rigidity, including why they can be difficult to separate. Sensory processing differences, executive functioning challenges, autistic inertia, interoceptive differences, and a strong preference for sameness can all shape autistic eating and eating disorder recovery.

A familiar breakfast, preferred brand, predictable meal schedule, or small rotation of foods may look rigid from the outside. For an autistic person, however, these routines can reduce sensory overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the executive functioning demands involved in eating.

Dr. Marianne explains why autism and eating disorder recovery may require a different definition of flexibility. Mechanical eating and predictable meal routines can be particularly helpful for autistic people who experience inconsistent hunger cues or difficulty interpreting internal body signals.

You'll also learn how the same autistic traits can sometimes complicate recovery. Changes to meal timing, unfamiliar foods, unexpected sensory experiences, and disruptions to established routines can create significant distress. What appears to be eating disorder resistance may actually involve autistic sensory needs, difficulty with transitions, interoceptive differences, or a need for predictability.

Food variety is another area where neurodivergent eating disorder treatment requires nuance. Expanding someone's range of foods can be important when limited intake creates nutritional or medical concerns, particularly with autism and ARFID. But eating more variety isn't automatically the same as eating disorder recovery.

Dr. Marianne discusses how sensory sensitivities can overlap with ARFID, anorexia, and other restrictive eating disorders, and why clinicians need to understand what a food behavior is doing before trying to change it. Avoiding a food because of texture, smell, temperature, or unpredictability isn't necessarily the same as avoiding it because of eating disorder fears about calories, weight, or body shape. Sometimes both are present.

Successful autistic eating disorder recovery doesn't require making someone's eating look neurotypical. An autistic person may continue to plan meals, repeat breakfasts, rely on preferred foods, check restaurant menus ahead of time, use sensory accommodations, and maintain predictable eating routines after the eating disorder has significantly improved.

Dr. Marianne also explains how autistic traits can become recovery strengths. A preference for routine can support regular meals and snacks, pattern recognition can help identify situations where nourishment breaks down, and understanding sensory needs can make eating more sustainable.

Rather than automatically trying to eliminate food rigidity in autism, neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder treatment asks a more useful question: Does this pattern strengthen the eating disorder, or does it help this person stay nourished?

Dr. Marianne specializes in autism, ADHD, ARFID, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and neurodivergent eating disorder recovery. Learn more about working with Dr. Marianne and her eating disorder therapy services at drmariannemiller.com. You can also explore her self-paced ARFID & Selective Eating course for adults with ARFID, parents and caregivers, and eating disorder providers.

Eating disorder recovery can feel surprisingly scary, even when you genuinely want to get better. Letting go of restriction, binge eating, purging, compulsive exercise, food rules, or body checking can trigger intense fear because eating disorder behaviors often serve functions that go far beyond food and body image.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores why recovery from anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and other restrictive eating disorders can feel unsafe. When an eating disorder has become connected to predictability, emotional regulation, control, or relief from anxiety and sensory overload, changing those patterns may feel threatening rather than freeing.

Fear of weight gain is one of the most recognized parts of eating disorder recovery, but the fear underneath it can be more complicated. Body changes may bring up concerns about weight stigma, identity, sensory discomfort, social judgment, loss of control, or being treated differently by others.

Dr. Marianne discusses why food anxiety and fear of eating cannot always be addressed by simply challenging the food itself. Understanding what the eating disorder behavior has been doing for you can help uncover what needs additional support during recovery.

Neurodivergent people may experience additional challenges during eating disorder recovery. Autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, interoception, executive functioning, transitions, routines, and PDA can all shape someone's relationship with food and change.

A neurodivergent-affirming approach to eating disorder treatment recognizes that predictability and sensory accommodations can be genuine needs. Recovery does not have to mean stripping away every source of structure or forcing someone to tolerate overwhelming uncertainty.

Instead of asking only, “How do I stop this eating disorder behavior?” it can help to ask what the behavior has been accomplishing. Restriction may create structure. Binge eating may provide regulation or relief. Exercise may offer predictability. Food rules may reduce uncertainty.

Eating disorder recovery can include building new sources of safety, regulation, flexibility, support, and autonomy so the eating disorder no longer has to carry so much responsibility.

Eating Disorders as Safety Systems: Why Letting Go Can Trigger Fear on Apple and Spotify.

If Recovery Feels Unsafe Right Now: A Guided Moment for Eating Disorder Recovery Fear on Apple and Spotify.

Dr. Marianne Miller is an eating disorder therapist specializing in anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, ARFID, and neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder treatment. Learn more about therapy and working with Dr. Marianne at drmariannemiller.com. Dr. Marianne also offers consultation services.

For additional ARFID support, Dr. Marianne's self-paced ARFID & Selective Eating course offers a neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned approach for adults with ARFID, parents and caregivers, and providers. Learn more at drmariannemiller.com/arfid.

Supporting a child or teen with an eating disorder can leave parents caught between the urgency to help them eat and the fear that increasing control will create more conflict around food.

In this episode, Dr. Marianne welcomes psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Tom Wooldridge to discuss how parents can help a child with an eating disorder by replacing control with connection. Drawing from his book, Ending the Food Fight: Replacing Control with Connection to Help Your Child Heal from an Eating Disorder, Dr. Wooldridge offers a different way to understand eating disorders in children and teens, anorexia recovery, family dynamics, and the role of parents in eating disorder treatment.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Dr. Marianne and Dr. Wooldridge discuss why weight restoration and nutritional rehabilitation are essential in anorexia treatment, but may not address everything happening beneath eating disorder behaviors. A young person may restore weight and normalize eating while still struggling with perfectionism, obsessive thinking, emotional regulation, or other patterns that contributed to the eating disorder. Understanding these underlying dynamics can be an important part of longer-term eating disorder recovery and relapse prevention.

They also explore how an eating disorder can sometimes function as a source of order, regulation, or safety when a child’s internal world feels overwhelming. Dr. Wooldridge explains how attachment and emotional safety can help us understand why moving away from anorexia, binge eating, or other eating disorder behaviors can feel threatening, even when a young person wants to recover.

PARENTS, CONNECTION & EATING DISORDER RECOVERY

When a child or teen has anorexia or another eating disorder, parents may feel frightened, frustrated, angry, or desperate to make their child eat. Dr. Wooldridge describes three important areas for parents supporting eating disorder recovery in children and adolescents: self-regulation, emotional attunement, and the ability to reflect on both their child’s internal experience and their own.

The conversation introduces mentalization, a way of becoming curious about the thoughts, feelings, fears, and needs that may be driving a child’s behavior rather than responding only to the behavior itself. For parents navigating anorexia treatment or adolescent eating disorder recovery, this can create space between the understandable urge to react and the ability to respond with greater connection and emotional attunement.

Dr. Marianne and Dr. Wooldridge also discuss perfectionism and eating disorders, family dynamics, and intergenerational patterns around food, weight, and body image. Parents may carry their own histories of dieting, body shame, weight stigma, trauma, or perfectionism. Recognizing what belongs to the parent and what belongs to the child can help interrupt the unconscious transmission of these patterns.

Importantly, replacing control with connection does not mean abandoning structure, nutritional rehabilitation, medical monitoring, or professional eating disorder treatment. Children and teens with anorexia and other eating disorders need appropriate treatment and a qualified care team. Connection provides an emotional foundation that can support that work.

ABOUT DR. TOM WOOLDRIDGE

Dr. Tom Wooldridge is a board-certified psychologist and psychoanalyst, founding dean of the School of Psychology at Golden Gate University, and an eating disorder specialist. His books include:

Understanding Anorexia Nervosa in Males 

Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak 

Ending the Food Fight: Replacing Control with Connection to Help Your Child Heal from an Eating Disorder.

His work brings together eating disorder treatment, anorexia recovery, psychoanalytic therapy, attachment, family relationships, perfectionism, and the psychological factors underlying eating disorders.

EATING DISORDER & ARFID SUPPORT WITH DR. MARIANNE

If you are looking for an eating disorder therapist, ARFID therapist, anorexia therapist, or neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder therapy, Dr. Marianne Miller provides eating disorder therapy for clients in California and Washington, D.C. Her work includes support for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, autism, ADHD, and complex or long-term eating disorders.

Dr. Marianne also offers a self-paced ARFID & Selective Eating Course for adults with ARFID, parents and caregivers of children and teens with ARFID, and providers who want to learn more about neurodivergent-affirming ARFID treatment.

Visit Dr. Marianne’s website to learn more about eating disorder therapy in California, ARFID treatment, eating disorder recovery, parent support, and neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder care, or to explore the ARFID course and additional resources.

Can you have anorexia and struggle with binge eating, too? If you find yourself moving between food restriction and binge eating, you may wonder whether your eating disorder has changed or whether you're somehow failing at recovery.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne talks about the binge-restrict cycle, why eating disorder symptoms can shift over time, and what it means when binge eating shows up during anorexia recovery. Binge eating after restriction does not automatically mean you have binge eating disorder (BED). Extreme hunger, reactive eating, subjective binges, and eating that feels out of control can all occur in the context of restriction and long-term eating disorder recovery.

Dr. Marianne discusses why restriction can make food feel increasingly urgent, why returning to restriction after a binge can keep the cycle going, and why subtle forms of restriction are easy to miss.

She also explains why restriction may feel safer or more familiar than binge eating, especially for people who have lived with anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders for years or decades. For neurodivergent people with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD, food restriction can also become intertwined with routine, sensory needs, predictability, executive functioning, autonomy, and nervous system regulation.

You’ll learn why binge eating doesn't erase a history of anorexia, why eating more isn't automatically evidence of BED, and why the goal isn't necessarily to determine which eating disorder you "really" have.

What happens after a binge or an episode of eating more than you intended matters. Skipping meals, delaying breakfast, cutting portions, avoiding certain foods, or exercising to compensate can restart the restriction-binge cycle.

Instead, Dr. Marianne discusses returning to consistent nourishment, identifying hidden restriction, getting curious about what preceded the binge, and resisting the pull to romanticize anorexia when binge eating feels frightening.

For people with chronic or long-term eating disorders, progress may mean recognizing the cycle sooner, reducing its intensity, and responding to difficult eating experiences without punishment or compensation.

If you’re navigating anorexia, binge eating, bulimia, ARFID, or a long-term eating disorder that doesn't fit neatly into one diagnostic category, Dr. Marianne offers neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed eating disorder therapy.

Learn more about eating disorder therapy, working with Dr. Marianne, and additional resources at drmariannemiller.com.

Topics include: anorexia, anorexia recovery, binge eating, binge eating disorder, BED, binge-restrict cycle, restriction-binge cycle, restrictive eating, extreme hunger, reactive eating, chronic eating disorders, long-term eating disorder recovery, neurodivergent eating disorders, autism and eating disorders, ADHD and eating disorders, eating disorder therapy, and eating disorder recovery.

ADHD & Bulimia: Dopamine, Impulsivity, & the Hidden Link to Binge Eating With Kirsten Book, PMHNP-BC on Apple and Spotify.

Beyond Anorexia: The Truth About Long-Term Restrictive Eating on Apple and Spotify.

Why Eating Feels So Chaotic With ADHD: Binge Eating, Bulimia, & Executive Function Challenges on Apple and Spotify.

Food rationing and scarcity fears can show up in eating disorders in surprising ways. You might save the last few bites even though you’re still hungry, carefully make favorite foods “last,” become anxious when safe foods run low, or hesitate to eat something because you’re worried you won’t have it later.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores how food scarcity anxiety can affect people with anorexia, bulimia, ARFID, and other eating disorders. Restriction can teach the brain and body that food is scarce, even when food is physically available. Over time, saving food may start to provide a sense of certainty, predictability, or safety.

You’ll hear about why people with anorexia may ration foods they enjoy, how the restrict-binge-purge cycle in bulimia can create a sense of food urgency, and why ARFID safe foods may become especially difficult to use when someone fears running out.

Dr. Marianne also discusses how autism, ADHD, sensory differences, executive functioning, and food insecurity can shape scarcity fears. For neurodivergent people, keeping backup foods may actually support eating. The important question is whether those foods remain available to eat or become so protected that using them creates anxiety.

For people with ARFID and autism, food availability can carry additional meaning. A brand change, discontinued product, altered texture, different packaging, or unavailable restaurant item can eliminate a previously reliable food.

Protecting or stocking safe foods may therefore reflect a genuine need for sensory predictability rather than weight or body image concerns. Understanding the reason behind the behavior can help parents, providers, and people with ARFID respond with more flexibility and less pressure.

If you want to learn more, Dr. Marianne’s self-paced ARFID and Selective Eating course covers ARFID treatment through a neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed approach, including autism, ADHD, PDA, autonomy, safe foods, sensory differences, and nervous system regulation.

Learn more at drmariannemiller.com/arfid.

Food rationing isn’t always about restriction. Sometimes you’re saving certainty, sensory predictability, pleasure, permission, or tomorrow’s sense of safety.

Rather than immediately trying to eliminate the behavior, consider asking: What am I afraid will happen if this food is gone?

That answer can help identify whether you need more consistent nourishment, greater access to safe foods, support with anorexia or bulimia recovery, practical backup foods, or repeated experiences of learning that food can be eaten today and become available again tomorrow.

If you’re looking for eating disorder therapy, ARFID therapy, anorexia treatment, bulimia treatment, or neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder support, visit drmariannemiller.com to learn more about working with Dr. Marianne.

Food Allergy Anxiety & ARFID: When Safety Fears Shape Eating & Family Life With Tamara Hubbard @foodallergycounselor on Apple & Spotify.

Eating Disorders as Safety Systems: Why Letting Go Can Trigger Fear on Apple and Spotify.

If Recovery Feels Unsafe Right Now: A Guided Moment for Eating Disorder Recovery Fear on Apple and Spotify.

What happens when years of hearing that you talk too much turn into the belief that you are simply too much?

In this episode, Dr. Marianne welcomes back eating disorder therapist Stacie Fanelli for a conversation about hyperverbalism, ADHD, autism, and eating disorders. They discuss why some neurodivergent people process thoughts and emotions through talking, why hyperverbal communication is often misunderstood, and how repeated messages about being “too loud,” “too emotional,” or “too much” can create lasting shame.

Stacie explains how this shame can extend beyond communication and relationships into body image and eating disorder behaviors. For some autistic and ADHD people, the desire to become smaller, quieter, less visible, or less burdensome can become intertwined with food restriction, weight loss, and eating disorder symptoms.

They also discuss neurodivergent masking and unmasking, rejection sensitivity, fear of being misunderstood, anti-fat bias, and the vulnerability that can follow sharing a lot with another person. Hyperverbalism does not cause eating disorders or body shame. Instead, this conversation looks at how eating disorders can capitalize on an existing belief that your natural way of existing is excessive.

Stacie and Dr. Marianne discuss how hyperverbalism can show up in autistic and ADHD adults, why talking can serve as a form of processing and regulation, and why traditional expectations about communication can leave neurodivergent people feeling ashamed of how they naturally connect with others.

You’ll also hear how “I talk too much” can gradually become “I take up too much space,” why eating disorders may offer the illusion of becoming less visible or burdensome, and how neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder therapy can address these experiences without encouraging more masking.

They also examine why eating disorder recovery is not about teaching neurodivergent people to communicate more like neurotypical people. Healing can include learning how to navigate relationships, advocate for your needs, and take up physical and conversational space without believing you must become a smaller version of yourself to deserve connection.

This conversation may especially resonate with autistic, ADHD, and other neurodivergent adults who struggle with eating disorders, body shame, masking, rejection sensitivity, or the persistent feeling of being “too much.” It may also be helpful for eating disorder therapists, dietitians, clinicians, partners, and loved ones who want to better understand neurodivergent communication and eating disorder recovery.

Stacie Fanelli is an eating disorder therapist whose work focuses on the intersection of eating disorders, ADHD, autism, and neurodivergence. You can read her blog, including “The Loneliness of Being Hyper Verbal,” and learn more about her work at autonomousmindstherapy.com.

Follow Stacie on Instagram: @EDADHD_therapist

“Stuck” Isn’t Lazy: Inertia in ADHD, Autism, & Eating Disorder Recovery on Apple and Spotify.

Recovering Again: Navigating Eating Disorders After a Late Neurodivergent Diagnosis (Part 1) on Apple and Spotify.

Recovering Again: Navigating Eating Disorders After a Late Neurodivergent Diagnosis (Part 2) on Apple and Spotify.

Minding the Gap: The Intersection Between AuDHD & Eating Disorders on Apple and Spotify.

Looking for neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder support? Dr. Marianne Miller is an eating disorder therapist specializing in ARFID, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, and neurodivergence, including autism and ADHD.

Learn more about eating disorder therapy, coaching, and Dr. Marianne’s self-paced ARFID & Selective Eating course at drmariannemiller.com.

Why does eating feel easier, more appealing, or more intense at night for some neurodivergent people?

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores Night Eating Syndrome (NES), ADHD, autism, and neurodivergent eating patterns through a neurodivergent-affirming lens. Rather than assuming nighttime eating comes from a lack of willpower, she looks at what may be happening across the entire day.

ADHD and autism can affect interoception, hunger cues, executive functioning, sensory processing, sleep, circadian rhythms, and appetite regulation. Hyperfocus, masking, sensory overload, stimulant medication, and difficulty transitioning between tasks can also make daytime eating harder. By evening, the body may finally have the opportunity to catch up.

Dr. Marianne discusses why neurodivergent people may miss or misinterpret hunger cues during the day, how ADHD hyperfocus and executive functioning can delay meals, and why autistic people may find it easier to eat once sensory and social demands decrease.

You'll also learn how masking and sensory overload can disconnect people from physical needs, why food can provide sensory regulation and stimulation, and how delayed eating can contribute to stronger nighttime hunger.

The episode also explains the differences between Night Eating Syndrome and Binge Eating Disorder, including why eating more at night does not automatically mean someone is binge eating.

Fear about nighttime eating can create another problem: restriction the following day.

Someone may eat more at night, feel guilty, skip breakfast or restrict during the day, and then become intensely hungry again that evening. For people with inconsistent hunger cues, ADHD, autism, or an eating disorder history, stricter food rules may reinforce the very pattern they are trying to change.

Dr. Marianne also discusses low morning appetite, mechanical eating, sleep differences, circadian rhythms, and nighttime nervous system regulation.

Sometimes nighttime is the first part of the day when a neurodivergent person feels safe, quiet, unmasked, and free from demands. Understanding that context can change the way we think about nighttime eating.

Instead of asking only, “How do I stop eating at night?” this episode encourages a different question:

What is making eating harder or less accessible earlier in the day?

Night eating may provide important information about unmet nutritional needs, sensory safety, executive functioning, appetite timing, nervous system regulation, or the need for autonomy and decompression.

If you're navigating Night Eating Syndrome, ADHD, autism, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, ARFID, or another complicated relationship with food, Dr. Marianne offers neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed support.

Learn more about therapy, coaching, courses, and other resources at drmariannemiller.com.

What happens when you’ve spent years working on eating disorder recovery, but anorexia or bulimia still shows up?

Long-term eating disorder recovery can feel exhausting, especially when you understand your patterns but still struggle with restriction, bingeing, purging, compulsive exercise, or persistent food and body image thoughts. Knowing why something happens doesn’t always make it easy to change.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores what it means to feel stuck in recovery from chronic anorexia and bulimia and shares five practical strategies for approaching long-standing eating disorder patterns differently.

Through the fictional story of Tiana, a woman whose eating disorder has shifted between anorexia, bingeing, purging, and compulsive exercise over many years, Dr. Marianne examines how recovery can continue even when progress doesn’t look dramatic.

You’ll learn how to recognize eating disorder recovery progress beyond complete symptom elimination, identify smaller places to interrupt the binge-restrict cycle, and create an eating plan that actually works when your capacity is low.

Dr. Marianne also discusses why persistent eating disorder behaviors may serve important functions, how neurodivergence can complicate eating and recovery, and why you don’t have to feel completely ready before taking a recovery-supportive action.

The episode includes practical strategies for mechanical eating, low-lift nourishment, binge eating and restriction, purging urges, compensatory exercise, body image distress, and getting back to regular eating after a difficult day.

Living with an eating disorder for years or decades does not mean every part of your recovery will always look the same.

Sometimes getting unstuck means eating breakfast after a binge or purge instead of compensating. It might mean keeping easy foods available when executive functioning is low, eating lunch before extreme hunger hits, or recognizing that one difficult meal does not have to become a week of restriction.

For people with ADHD, autism, or other forms of neurodivergence, eating disorder treatment may also need to account for sensory needs, interoception, hyperfocus, executive functioning, transitions, and nervous system regulation.

Recovery doesn’t always happen through one major breakthrough. Sometimes meaningful change starts with making the next recovery-supportive choice easier to access.

If you’re struggling with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, ARFID, or a long-term eating disorder, Dr. Marianne offers neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed eating disorder therapy and coaching.

Learn more about working with Dr. Marianne, explore the ARFID & Selective Eating course, and find additional eating disorder and neurodivergence resources at drmariannemiller.com.

Follow Dr. Marianne on Instagram @drmariannemiller for more conversations about eating disorders, ARFID, autism, ADHD, body image, and neurodivergent-affirming recovery. 

What if binge eating isn’t a willpower problem at all?

Dr. Marianne welcomes back nutritionist and eating disorder specialist Marcelle Rose @marcellerosenutrition, author of The Binge Freedom Method, for a conversation about binge eating recovery without dieting. Marcelle works with people experiencing binge eating, bulimia, restrictive eating, and emotional eating, and her approach looks beyond food to understand what may actually be driving these patterns.

Dr. Marianne and Marcelle discuss why dieting and restriction can fuel binge eating, how sleep and physiology can affect hunger and cravings, and why reducing shame matters in binge eating recovery. They also talk about body image, weight stigma, emotional regulation, and rebuilding trust with food and your body.

Marcelle shares the four pillars of The Binge Freedom Method: Nourish, Balance, Think, and Feel. Her framework incorporates nutrition, physiology, thoughts and beliefs, emotions, and body image rather than treating binge eating as simply a problem of self-control.

Check out a free chapter of the book HERE!

A major focus of the conversation is the connection between ADHD and binge eating. ADHD can make eating consistently difficult, especially when executive functioning challenges, distraction, overwhelm, or hyperfocus interfere with recognizing hunger and stopping to eat.

Marcelle and Dr. Marianne discuss practical ADHD-friendly strategies such as simplifying meals, eating familiar foods, using reminders, creating flexible routines, and reducing the cognitive load around breakfast and meal planning.

They also discuss why support and accommodations can matter more than rigid expectations when neurodivergent people struggle to eat regularly.

Recovery involves more than stopping binge eating. Marcelle shares how clients can gradually move away from self-blame, chronic dieting, and the belief that they simply need more willpower.

You’ll also hear about body image healing, weight stigma, diet culture, regular eating, self-compassion, and what it can look like when food finally takes up less space in your mind.

If you struggle with binge eating disorder, emotional eating, ADHD and binge eating, the binge-restrict cycle, chronic dieting, or body image, this conversation offers a compassionate alternative to another diet.

Disordered Eating in Midlife: Stress, Life Changes, & Perimenopause on Apple & Spotify.

WTF Is Happening to My Body?! Gut Health & Midlife Unpacked on Apple & Spotify.

ADHD & Bulimia: Dopamine, Impulsivity, & the Hidden Link to Binge Eating With Kirsten Book, PMHNP-BC on Apple and Spotify.

Why Eating Feels So Chaotic With ADHD: Binge Eating, Bulimia, & Executive Function Challenges on Apple and Spotify.

Looking for support with an eating disorder or a difficult relationship with food? Dr. Marianne Miller is an eating disorder therapist specializing in ARFID, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, and neurodivergent-affirming eating disorder care.

Visit DrMarianneMiller.com to learn more about working with Dr. Marianne, her ARFID & Selective Eating course, and other resources.

Listen to more episodes of Dr. Marianne-Land for conversations about eating disorder recovery, ADHD, autism, ARFID, binge eating, body image, and neurodivergent-affirming care.

Why can eating feel so calming, stimulating, or grounding? For many autistic people, ADHDers, and people with eating disorders, food does more than satisfy hunger. Eating can provide sensory input, emotional regulation, predictability, stimulation, and nervous system support.

In this solo episode, Dr. Marianne explores food as self-regulation, co-regulation, and stimming, including why chewing, crunching, sipping, familiar foods, and repetitive eating experiences may help a neurodivergent nervous system feel more organized. She also discusses how these needs can intersect with autism, ADHD, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and ARFID.

You'll learn why autistic and ADHD people may use food for sensory regulation, how eating can function as a form of stimming, and why "emotional eating" doesn't always capture what's actually happening.

Dr. Marianne also explains why restriction can feel regulating for some people with anorexia, how food may help an overwhelmed or understimulated ADHD nervous system, why predictable safe foods can provide sensory security with ARFID, and how binge eating or bulimia can become intertwined with attempts to regulate distress.

Rather than asking only, "How do I stop this eating behavior?" Dr. Marianne encourages a different question: "What is my nervous system getting from this?"

Food can provide powerful sensory experiences through taste, temperature, texture, chewing, swallowing, crunching, and repetition. For some neurodivergent people, these sensations can help increase stimulation, reduce overwhelm, support focus, or create predictability.

Recovery doesn't have to mean eliminating food as a source of comfort or regulation. Instead, it can involve understanding what food provides and gradually expanding the ways your nervous system accesses safety, sensory input, connection, and support.

If you're navigating ARFID, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, autism, ADHD, sensory eating challenges, or neurodivergent eating disorder recovery, Dr. Marianne offers a neurodivergent-affirming, sensory-attuned, trauma-informed approach.

Dr. Marianne provides eating disorder therapy in California and Washington, D.C., including telehealth and in-person services in San Diego, as well as coaching and consultation worldwide.

Learn more about working with Dr. Marianne and find additional eating disorder and neurodivergence resources at drmariannemiller.com.