Meal time behavior difficulties but not nutritional deficiencies correlate with sensory processing in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Shmaya et al. (2017) compared kids with autism to typically developing peers. They looked at sensory profiles, mealtime behaviors, and blood nutrient levels.

The team wanted to know if sensory issues predict food battles or vitamin shortages.

Kids with autism who had extreme sensory scores also had more mealtime tantrums, gagging, or food refusal.

Surprisingly, sensory scores did not line up with any nutrient shortfalls in the blood.

In plain words: picky eating shows up at the table, not in the lab work.

Scior et al. (2023) added a twist. They showed that autistic kids who are overweight have both higher leptin and worse mealtime behaviors. This extends Yael’s finding by hinting that body chemistry and sensory issues may stack together.

Gal et al. (2022) built the Aut-Eat Questionnaire to capture the same mealtime problems Yael studied. Their tool lets you quickly score the very behaviors that sensory profiles predict.

Simeon et al. (2025) looked at 61 feeding studies and found most are tiny and measure things differently. Yael’s paper is one of the cleaner examples they include, but the review warns us not to treat any single result as the final word.

You now have two quick screens: a sensory profile and a mealtime checklist. If a child shows sensory over- or under-responsivity, expect food refusal, not hidden malnutrition. Save costly blood draws for kids with other red flags, and spend your energy on sensory-friendly mealtime plans instead.