Meal Plan for Aspergers Adolescents

As moms & dads, we all know that our adolescents need to eat well. Their bodies are still growing, their brains are still changing, and their hormones may be taking a toll on their moods and energy levels. Yet we also know that adolescents are prone to eating irregularly, and sometimes quite poorly, particularly as they distance themselves from parental controls, and eat more meals away from home. Pizza, cookies, ice cream, and soft drinks may be the most common foods in their diets at this age. But moms & dads have more influence and capacity to affect their adolescents' diets positively than they may think they do. The keys to positive change in the arena of diet and nutrition are positive attitude, planning, and preparation. These keys are already in your hands.

Moms & dads have a particularly strong advantage in this arena because, generally speaking, moms & dads have higher incomes than adolescents, and adolescents would rather spend more of their incomes on clothing, music, movies, and other entertainment, and as little as possible on food. Adolescents with Aspergers are not much different; the only real difference may be that appropriate diet and nutrition may be even more important to help them keep improving their social skills and relations with other adolescents and adults. Even slight worsening of moods, or additional absent-mindedness due to low blood sugar from skipping a meal, may cause a adolescent with Aspergers to fall into difficulties in important social situations. Once he or she has created a "social storm", such as a rift with a friend, or opposition to a teacher, the adolescent with Aspergers often has more trouble than other adolescents navigating the troubled waters and reaching a safe shore.

Using the keys to positive change in the arena of your adolescent's diet and nutrition is not difficult. The following outline gives many examples of simple and direct changes you can make. A separate article on this website will cover special issues, including how to assess and manage food allergies, and co-occurring medical conditions.

Positive Attitude—

Most of us yearn to have peace at the dinner table and in the home; we would like to provide healthy food, and have our kids eat it with appreciation and without complaints. Yet we may forget that a positive attitude about food has to begin with us.

In many countries and cultures of the world, kids and adolescents are only too glad to have enough food to eat each day. In much of Africa, families still eat all their meals together and in rural areas there is generally a single bowl of food, a grain or root starch with a vegetable sauce that young and old family members share. Meat is often more of a luxury, or may be offered only in small quantities. Soft drinks and sugary desserts are luxury items, and a regular component of the diet only for relatively wealthy people. While living and traveling in rural West Africa for four years, I never observed any adolescents complaining about the food, or refusing to eat a prepared meal.

In the United States, by contrast, we often have too much food, and paradoxically, much of it is not healthy or nutritious. Adolescents complain about the food provided for them, and may refuse to eat, or don't eat well at prepared meals with their families, because they have a confusing array of other choices. They often do not view making daily decisions about what is and is not nutritious as their job, and they shouldn't; it is the job of the adults in the community, whether at home or at school, to guide adolescents to eat wisely by providing nutritious food, and by limiting the supply of non-nutritious foods available.

At the same time, eating together is one of the most affirming and basic family-building activities possible; it also links us to other human beings in our own community and other communities; it is one activity that we all have in common, no matter what culture we are from! Our first job, therefore, is to return a sense of pleasure and even joy to family mealtimes, and to eating in general, if it isn't already there; our second job is to plan for food that is appropriately nutritious, even planning some meals with our adolescents; our third job is to prepare the food with a calm attitude and with thoughtful attention to the needs of our adolescents, whether it be for portable meals, late-night snacks, or a constant supply of pocket-sized nutritious energy-boosters.

Here are several ways to keep positive attitudes circulating in your home:

1. Try music and candlelight for a change. Ask your adolescent to choose some quiet music that he or she especially likes.

2. Start each meal together, at the table, and wait for everyone to be there. It helps to share a moment of silent appreciation, a chosen quote, or a prayer if you are so inclined. Let all family members take turns choosing the opening.

3. Offer only nutritious foods at mealtimes. Try to buy as many fresh foods as possible, and use color contrasts to make the meal appeal to the artist in your teen.

4. Get family members to take turns helping to set the table creatively with attractive, even unusual, centerpieces or decorations. Some of these may even help generate conversation with ordinarily taciturn adolescents.

5. Do not make meal times a time to criticize or moralize; try to open the conversation to everyone, and avoid topics that exclude some people, or are boring for kids or teens. In the original book, Cheaper by the Dozen (a true story), family members were allowed to call out, "Not of general interest!" when inappropriate or boring dinnertime conversation topics were introduced.

6. Ask family members what their favorite dinners are, and either prepare those meals yourself or allow them to prepare those meals, once a week.

Planning and Preparation—

Turning your kitchen into a generator of good nutrition and better eating habits may feel like a monumental task, but it is entirely manageable if broken down into tasks that only take an hour or less.

1. Based on your family's list of favorite meals, and the cook's preferences, create a new grocery list featuring fresh foods and non-sugar foods for the main meals.

2. Go through the refrigerator and the pantry shelves and gradually reduce and eliminate unhealthy foods. These include those foods whose primary ingredient is sugar (i.e. the first ingredient on the label), and foods with artificial ingredients, including preservatives and artificial coloring. Get rid of all soft drinks. Extra salty or fatty foods should also be limited, but these are more problematic for adult health; adolescents can handle some salty, fatty foods because of their higher activity levels. Then don't buy unhealthy foods anymore. If anyone asks, you can tell them you can't afford them. Having to buy these foods themselves will immediately reduce your adolescents' (and other family members') need for them.

3. It is also good practice to rotate cooking duties. Cooking is a practical skill and art form that all adolescents should master early in life. A adolescent with Aspergers may especially appreciate feeling self-confident serving tasty food he or she has prepared to friends and family.

4. It is important to continue to provide some snack foods, portable foods, and quick meals. These in-between food sources are often the culprits in poor nutrition and diet, however, so it is crucial to look closely at ingredients, and change the foods that are available whenever you determine that the current offerings are unhealthy. Make sure that you provide a continual supply of a variety of these meal alternatives, or your adolescent will resort to relying on vending machines and friends; neither source can be relied upon for solely healthy and nutritious food!

5. Next, see how many canned or already prepared foods you can replace with fresh foods. These foods are often a hidden source of unwanted sugars, preservatives, and other chemical additives that can actually damage your family's health. Try the local health food store for spaghetti sauce and other sauces and dressings free of chemistry experiments; farmer's markets often have homemade jams, hot sauces, pesto, flavored honey, herb vinegars and other specialties. Check the local bakeries for bread; often bakeries sell their day-old bread at a significant discount - and it is still a lot fresher than what you will find at the grocery store!

6. Pay special attention to breakfast foods. You may have to woo your adolescent to the breakfast table, but it is worth the effort. Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day for regulating energy levels, brain power, and moods.

7. Preparing food should be a happy, not a harassed, activity. We have a rule in our house that the cook gets to choose the music or radio program while preparing meals, and others are in the kitchen at the same time only if they are contributing to a positive atmosphere.

8. Whoever does the majority of the cooking in the family should consider what foods he or she enjoys the most, and should check out a few cookbooks featuring their favorite foods from the library. A happy and inspired cook makes good food; inspiring food makes better mealtimes and better nutrition possible.

Very Easy Recipes—

Simple examples of healthy snack foods: a) apples and peanut butter; b) carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes etc., either plain or with dipping sauce; c) granola or homemade granola bars; d) peanuts and raisins, or other fruit/nut mixes; e) whole yogurt with fresh fruit and honey; f) cheese and wholegrain crackers; g)yogurt and fruit "smoothies" made in the blender; h) quick breads and muffins made from scratch - easier than you think.

Portable foods need to be hard, or in a hard container, so that they are not squashed and unappetizing by the time your adolescent gets around to remembering to eat them. Apples and granola bars are a good start; sometimes we get beef, elk, venison or bison jerky from friends who make their own jerky, and more farmers and ranchers are starting to offer these products for sale. We also have a favorite cookie recipe. Using whatever basic chocolate chip cookie recipe your family prefers, cut the sugar by one-quarter cup, and substitute one-half cup quick oats for one-half cup of the flour required. Add chopped nuts, and even coconut flakes, if you prefer. Use real butter rather than margarine. Making a variation of these cookies each week, and filling the cookie jar will provide a more nutritious treat than store-bought cookies.

Quick meals should be meals that adolescents, including those with Aspergers' Syndrome, can cook for themselves in the afternoon after school, or late at night when returning from an evening out, or if they are up late studying. Provide instruction in how to prepare basic pasta, and then make sure that a variety of interesting pasta shapes and sauces are readily available and that your adolescent knows how to find the necessary ingredients and pots and pans by him or herself. Egg-based meals are another example. Make sure that your adolescent knows how to prepare basic scrambled eggs, omelets, fried or poached eggs, hard-boiled eggs, and French toast. With just these two basic food sources in his or her cooking repertoire, your adolescent can create a dozen different healthy meals.

Rather than using direct praise for positive changes in your adolescent's eating habits, which may feel too intrusive or excessive for what he or she will rightly regard as a very basic part of life, ask your adolescent to cook for the family. "You prepare such good food these days; could I get you to cook for everyone once this week or next week?" will make your adolescent feel both self-confident, and needed. For a adolescent, with or without Aspergers, these are the marks of growing into adulthood and family membership as the contributing adult that he or she wants to be, deep down.


RESOURCES:

• Zurbel, Runa and Victor. 1984. The Natural Lunchbox. New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

• Robertson, Laurel, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey. 1976. Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition. New York, New York: Bantam Books. Considered the "Joy of Cooking" for the whole foods kitchen, this book has great tables on the nutritional components of different foods, as well as a large number of recipes.

• Schauss, Alexander, Barbara Friedlander, and Arnold Meyer. 1991. Eating for A's. New York, New York: Pocket Books.

• Katzen, Mollie. 1977. The Moosewood Cookbook. Berkeley, California: The Ten Speed Press. Many of our family's favorite nutritious, fresh food recipes come from this cookbook and its successor, The Broccoli Forest.

• Fallon, Sally. 1995. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. San Diego, California: ProMotion Publishing. The title says it all; this wonderful cookbook provides healthy, fresh food alternatives based on a wide variety of traditional cultures, as well as an introduction to good nutrition that is well worth reading.

• Beard, James. 1973. Beard on Bread. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.This easy-to-use cookbook has clear instructions and great recipes for all kinds of quick breads, including biscuits, muffins, and sweetbreads, as well as yeast breads.

The Parenting Aspergers Resource Guide: A Complete
Resource Guide For Parents Who Have Children Diagnosed
With Aspergers Syndrome.