Does anyone have any experience with eating disorders and aspergers? Our daughter is 14 she now hides the lunch she doesn't eat at sch.

[christmaz]

. She is finicky eater. Psychiatrist said AS but CAMHS are dragging their heels with ADOS test.

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I can only tell you about my grown-up son`s eating experiences, he has aspergers. When he was a baby and I started to wean him off milk, it was difficult, he wasn`t interested, the result was he was drinking so many bottles of milk day and night, I was forever changing him, clothes and sheets, the first thing when he began to eat and it was the only thing, was rich tea biscuits, along with the milk, any attempt at offering anything else you ended up wearing it or it hit the wall if you managed to duck in time. Of course he did begin to eat slightly more things and had a few fads and where he would would eat this particular food constantly, but most times I think he only had a variety of 6 - 7 different foods. The other thing is it was the way it was prepared or cooked i.e. scrambled eggs had to be dropped in small blobs and crisped up, otherwise one look, not even one bite and it was refused, still is, he doesn`t appear to get hungry and often only has one meal a day, usually in the evenings.

Is there any chance your daughter will prepare her own sandwiches etc, and talk about what she likes to eat, everything included, bread, butter, fillings, you could get them and she could show you how she likes them, even if she doesn`t want to prepare them herself you`d know exactly how she liked her food, that was the only way I could get my son to eat. It sounds so silly to someone without this problem, but I have two sons and I know the difference, it`s not my son with aspergers being difficult, he doesn`t see things the same and like a lot of things, it`s that moment or never. I hope this helps, I know how difficult it is.

[annnrewman]

My son has Asperger's and we have just discussed this. We think the only link would be that she has taken the normal teenage need to be skinny on board far more stringently than most girls. Influences can be even more powerful than normal for people with Asperger's. There are no grey areas with Asperger's. Watch out for Anorexia! My son suggests she should become obsessed with fitness, such as Olympic athletes, Gladiators - look up Diane Newdale 'Jet' (TV) etc. instead of being too thin like models in OK magazine. Or perhaps Kick boxing (which would give her confidence and help stop bullying) for example. Obsessions in Asperger's can blur the difference between reality and fantasy and what makes sense for one's wellbeing, so she would starve herself in an obsessive way to get what she considers to be thin enough. It's all to do with self perception and confidence but in an obsessive way. Ann