Honoring sensory sensitivities while healing the relationship with food and body

Given that every individual has a sensory profile as unique as our fingerprints, and that every sense is involved in our experience of embodiment, it only makes sense that the way we approach healing our relationships with our bodies should be adapted to fit our very specific sensory needs. 

It’s exciting to hear more and more eating disorder providers remark that treatment can no longer be “one-size-fits-all.” But when individualizing a plan for healing, how are they taking into account hyper- and hypo-sensitivities to taste and texture, smell, sound, visuals, and the lesser discussed internal sensory inputs: proprioception (pressure and coordination), interoception (awareness of body’s cues), and vestibular (movement and balance)?

My go-to strategy for discussing sensory differences is in terms of a cup of water. We all have eight different cups (sensory systems) of input, some of which may be filled at the optimal level for our unique bodies, some of which may need to fill up more to meet our needs, and some of which may spill over if a single additional drop is added. This is where we get the concept of being “over-stimulated” and “under-stimulated” in terms of our senses (we can also be stimulated by emotional and social input, but that’s another blog post!). That being said, you may tend to run more over- or under-stimulated in one sensory system or another; it doesn’t have to be the same across the board. Even within each system, there is typically some variation (thus, the uniqueness of a fingerprint). 

For example, I struggle to tolerate crumpled up pieces of paper in my line of sight, but I crave bright colors and varied shapes and sizes in my environment. All of this occurs within my visual system; I am hypo-sensitive in that I often need more input, but if it’s the “wrong” input, my cup may spill over. Friends and professionals alike often perceive those of us who have varied needs like this as particular, picky, high-maintenance, or even manipulative because of the inconsistency (a la “Oh, so you’re sensitive to smells when it’s trash I asked you to take out, but you’ll burn incense all day - how convenient”). Because being misunderstood hurts so much, we may resort to “over-explaining” and hyper-vigilance to maintain a sense of control over further rejection. It can be exhausting!

Some neurotypes in particular, like autistic brains, don’t habituate in the way that neurotypical brains do, so in some cases, a person might benefit from gradual exposure to more and more crumpled paper in varying degrees of frequency and intensity until they don’t react with the same distress anymore, but because the disgust response this input triggers for me is often draining and emotionally painful, not only does exposure not work for me but it also contributes to acute anxiety symptoms, as sensory trauma is experienced for folks with sensory differences in the same way any other trauma would be for every brain.

So what does all this have to do with eating disorder recovery? Well, consider just a few ways in which ALL eight senses play a role in our experience of food, movement, and our bodies: 

Taste: Some people taste every nuanced note of flavor in every food, and while this may sound like every chef’s dream, it can lead to a discerning palate. Alternatively, others experience all foods as bland or tasting similar to one another and may rely more on seasoning to enjoy eating, which might be confused for a disordered behavior.

Touch: Those who are hypo-sensitive to tactile input may make choices around food entirely based on preferred texture rather than other sensory aspects of it or have extreme difficulty with the textures of foods that are non-preferred. 

Smell: Exposure to the smell of a dish while it’s cooking may last too long and cause us to tire of it, or we may feel disappointed when the taste doesn’t match up to what we expected.

Sight: Visual clutter on a plate (e.g. foods touching, certain colors and volume of food) may trigger overwhelm or disgust in a hypersensitive individual but be confused with “food rules” or perfectionism.

Sound: Social eating can be particularly difficult for folks with misophonia, which can activate an intense anger in response to the vast array of sounds going on at a dinner table, especially mouth sounds like chewing and swallowing. Add in glasses clinking, the refrigerator humming, and polite chit-chat, and those of us who can’t filter out unimportant sounds are too busy trying to regulate our nervous systems to sit and enjoy a relaxing meal.

Proprioception: Folks with differences in proprioceptive processing may struggle more to tolerate embodiment and feel a desire to crawl out of their skin. 

Vestibular: Those who are hypo-sensitive to this kind of input may seem to have an insatiable need for movement that can look like (or accompany) compulsive exercise. They’ll have a harder time accessing intuitive movement because it tends feel all good or all bad, so they might need a more regimented plan. 

Interoception: Those with interoceptive differences may rely on external cues like the visual reminder of the clock or others eating to keep up with their nutrition needs because hunger is either absent or indistinguishable from a plethora of other internal cues. 

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So what might it look like to honor your sensory needs when you are working towards healing their relationship with food? Here are some tips to weave into more traditional approaches: 

Self-compassion: Know that your sensory differences are part of who you are, not a hat you can or could ever take off at your leisure. You aren’t being dramatic, and you don’t need to “get over it.” You are deserving of accommodations. 

Make it fly by: Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to practice mindful eating to recover from an eating disorder. If paying closer attention to the sensory experience of food makes it harder to eat, you can use distractions like screens, preferred sensory input, and conversation to simply get through it. Sure, it would be lovely if every meal could be pleasurable, but if sensory over- or under-whelm are contributing to it feeling more like a chore, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. As Naureen Hunani of RDs for Nerodiversity says, “Choosing to dissociate is attunement.”

Adapt recipes: Often the struggle to eat with sensory differences goes beyond the eating itself. The process of feeding oneself also includes acquiring food (grocery store overhead lights can be intolerable); preparing food (beeping timers, competing smells, slimy ingredients, oh my!); and clean-up. Where possible, we can creatively alter our plans. For example, if the sensation of wetness makes doing the dishes sound equivalent to lighting yourself on fire, can you plan to make something that allows you to reuse the same pan multiple times to cut back and then serve it on paper plates? If you have to coat something in butter, can you wear gloves or use a spatula instead of your hands? Recipes are not gospel! 

Communicate: When dining out or eating with others, advocate for your needs. Restaurants are used to accommodating dietary preferences, and your sensory needs qualify (and if you’re worried about being a burden, see the point above about self-compassion). Having a few good scripts handy for addressing others’ comments on your eating style and setting a firm boundary around this is essential. 

Meet your body’s needs: Wear looser or tighter clothing. Reduce motor demands. Get yourself a mini trampoline. Remember: even if you struggle with an eating disorder, not everything about you is coming from your eating disorder. Work with a trusted support person for help untangling one from the other.