05. Balancing Meals for Kids with Autism
Have you ever wondered how to balance your child’s plate with autism? In this episode, we break down how to balance your child’s plate and how this can help with mood, focus, and energy levels. We also discuss a common reason for mid-morning or mid-afternoon crashes in school and how to resolve it.
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IN THIS EPISODE
2 reasons why balancing your child’s plate is important
How to balance a plate
The reason for mid-morning or mid-afternoon crashes in school
LINKS
Join the Autism Nutrition Library
Follow @AutismDietitian on Instagram
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast where you take a deep dive into the research on autism and dietary changes, nutrition supplements, and lifestyle modifications. Every week, we break down nutrition topics and an easy-to-understand way for you to feel less overwhelmed and feel confident on your nutrition journey with autism.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm your host Brittyn Coleman, or as you might know me, the Autism Dietitian, I'm really excited to talk about today's topic because it's so foundational and something that I believe everybody should master when first starting out with nutrition, or if you've been working on nutrition for a while, going back to the basics can be so helpful to make sure that you're not skipping over these big things. And this big thing that I'm talking about is balancing meals for kids with autism.
So, like I said, balancing meals is so foundational for two major reasons. Number one when we balance meals it helps kids get the nutrients they need from their food, which can cut down or eliminate the need to supplement in some cases. We always want to prioritize getting the nutrients from our food. I think supplements are great. They're helpful. They can help us fill in the gaps when kids are selective eaters and while we're working on expanding diet. But our main goal is to get nutrients from our food. And when we don't consistently get the nutrients we need, it puts us at risk for nutrient deficiencies. And when we don't have the right levels of nutrients, we're not setting up our bodies and brains for success.
Symptoms of nutrient deficiencies can look really different from person to person. And also depending on the nutrient that you're low in, but generally you can look for the most common symptoms like fatigue or weakness, shortness of breath, unusual food cravings, lightheadedness, even GI issues like constipation and diarrhea can show up, hair loss is a big one. If you look at the nails, you might notice that they're ridged or that they might be splitting. Hair skin and nail health is so important for us to acknowledge because that can also show us what's going on inside and maybe one of the initial symptoms of a nutrient deficiency.
If you notice that wounds are not healing very quickly or notice little lesions on the skin, that could also be a sign of a nutrient deficiency and that the body doesn't have the nutrients it needs to heal quickly.
Brain fog is also a common symptom when kids feel really fatigued and then their focus is affected. So looking into reasons why your child might not be focusing could it be that they have a nutrient deficiency or that their blood sugars aren't balanced? And then another really common sign of a nutrient deficiency, which I have another podcast episode coming out about this as something called pica, which is a craving of non-food items. It can actually link back to nutrient deficiencies like iron and zinc.
So it's really important that we pull the whole picture together and that we're looking at this as a set of symptoms, getting to that underlying root cause, which could be not having balanced meals, not getting the nutrients that they need to thrive.
So that's the first reason why balancing meals is so foundational and so important for kids.
Number two is that balancing meals is important for blood sugar management. Blood sugar management is important for everybody, even in those without diabetes.
All day long, our bodies are working to have these consistent blood sugar or blood glucose levels, as you will. And these levels will go up after we've eaten and we'll go down during fasting.
One thing that I see happening often in kids with autism is something called reactive hypoglycemia. And this is when we eat a lot of foods that is pretty starchy or high in carbohydrates and then our pancreas pumps out a bunch of insulin to bring down those blood sugar levels and sometimes it over does it. So first we have this really big spike in blood sugar levels. Our pancreas over does it sends out a ton of insulin. Brings down your blood sugar levels but does it too much and then you dip really low and start having symptoms of low blood sugar. And we don't want to have these really unstable blood sugars where they spike and peak and spike and peak. We really want to have these levels that are gradual waves.
There's something called the glycemic index and glycemic load. And this is a numerical value assigned to different foods that shows us how much of an impact a food may have on our blood sugar. So the higher glycemic load, the more it's going to affect your blood sugar.
Low blood sugar can often show up in kids mid-morning or mid-afternoon who have a breakfast or lunch that isn't as balanced as we would want maybe exclusively starches, which is common for kids with autism. And we'll talk about that in a second. But these low blood sugars can show up as behaviors at school, an issue with focusing, falling asleep, fatigue, et cetera.
So if you're often getting reports back from school that they're having behaviors midway through the morning or midway through the afternoon might want to think about what they're eating at breakfast and at lunch. And if they have snack times built in, because if their blood sugar levels are dropping, it makes sense as to why they're having these behavioral issues pop up.
I've had many clients who have children who started exhibiting these behaviors mid-morning or mid-afternoon, where when we start bouncing their meals or we add in a snack the symptoms start going away. Turns out the root of those behaviors came from blood sugar dysregulation and that their kids were probably hangry.
If your child shows symptoms of blood sugar dysregulation, we might want to think about breakfast and lunch and how balanced those are and if your child needs a snack to help keep those blood sugars adequate. So I'll share a little bit with you about what this is going to look like during meals and snacks. And one method that can help is what I call "carbs with friends", meaning that we pair a carbohydrate with a protein and/ or a fat.
And this can help not have as much of a spike of blood sugar and prevent that massive blood sugar drop later. A lot of times I tell my clients to make what's called a P F F plate, just like BFF, PFF, protein, fat, and fiber. And the quality is extremely important with all three of these things, but having all three at each mealtime can help balance those blood sugars, help your child get the nutrients that they need to thrive and to replenish any nutrient deficiencies. If they have them, it can also help support brain health and gut health by focusing on all three of those things at mealtimes and getting two of the three at snack time.
Again we really want to focus on how important quality is here we want to think about the ingredients that are in the protein fat and fiber foods that we're choosing the highest quality possible and if you're not quite sure what a protein food is or fat or fiber how to get high quality options take a look in the Autism Nutrition Library in the nutrients section I have tons of recommendations for you about protein fat and fiber and then I also have a lot of recipes for you in the recipe section of my membership, where you can find different meals that are balanced with protein, fat, and fiber
If you have a child with autism, it's more than likely that they're picky eater. And if you listen to episode three about picky eating, you know, more of the backstory to this and reasons why kids on the spectrum are more likely to be selective. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I would highly suggest if you have a picky eater to go listen to that, because that can really help you understand why children are selective and what the next steps will be.
So when kids are selective, it can make it really difficult to balance these meals because they might only want to eat a few different foods with a specific texture sensory profile, which often is crunchy and beige. That's the most common food profile that I see and those foods don't commonly have many nutrients.
They don't commonly have a lot of protein or healthy fats or fiber. Maybe they have a few of them. You know, like chicken nuggets and French fries. It might have some protein in there and it might have some fat, but we want to think about again, back to the quality. What kind of quality of these products are we putting into the body and how are we nourishing the body from the inside out?
But then other examples of these crunchy beige foods are often these really snacky foods that are just starches, just carbohydrates often have a lot of added sugars. Which can set them up to have this unstable blood sugar management, and also not be getting the nutrients that we need. So we want to go back to the basics, the foundation and say, how can we help them get protein, fat, and fiber, right. PFF, help them get protein, fat and fiber, all three at meal time, two of the three at snacks so that we can get the nutrients they need and also help them manage their blood sugars.
If you're currently struggling with this, or if your child has a lot of the symptoms that I talked about today, I invite you to come join me in my membership, where I help parents get started and reduce overwhelm around nutrition for autism. The membership is called the Autism Nutrition Library and it's for parents, with kids on the spectrum who are wanting to use nutrition to help their kids feel great.
And on top of all the information on supplements, diets, food symptoms, et cetera. I also have kid-friendly recipes to nourish kids on the spectrum and a member only community forum to support you during the journey.
Thanks so much for joining me today. As we talk about balancing meals for kids with autism, blood sugar management, getting the nutrients that we need and preventing nutrient deficiencies. All of these are such huge topics. And it's so important for us to go back to the basics if you've been implementing nutrition for a long time and skipped over these topics. And if you haven't started with nutrition and you're new to this, this is a really great place to start as you start understanding nutrition and adding to it as you go. I look forward to you joining me next week on the next episode of Nourishing Autism.
Please click subscribe so that you can be notified when the next episode comes out. And please also leave a review on the show or rating if you've enjoyed this episode so that I can reach even more families who have kids with autism. I'll see you next week.
This podcast is brought to you by the Autism Nutrition Library, a one-stop hub and community for all things autism nutrition created to help you explore evidence-based nutrition approaches that have proved to be effective to help individuals with autism feel their best, do their best, and be their best.
Join now by clicking Autism Nutrition Library or by stopping by my Instagram @AutismDietitian. See you next week.
Transcribed by Descript
ABOUT Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, CLT
I’m a Registered Dietitian, Autism Nutrition Expert, and the Creator of the Autism Nutrition Library.
I work with parents of children with autism to optimize their child’s diet, supplements, and lifestyle based on their unique needs. I help expand accepted foods for picky eaters, improve digestion and gut health, find the root causes of many symptoms, and ultimately help them feel their best so that they can do their best and be their best.
Not only do I relate to families on a professional level, but also on a personal level. I have been a part of the autism community for over 20 years, as my younger brother was diagnosed on the spectrum at a young age.
I look forward to working with you to uncover the root cause of your child’s symptoms and help your child be the best version of themselves!
