A study in Israel surveyed 164 adults found through social media ads. Of these, 63 reported a formal ADHD diagnosis and 101 did not. Most were women (85%). Everyone filled in online questionnaires on ADHD symptoms, food preparation, executive function and quality of life.
Adults with ADHD felt less confident about preparing food than adults without ADHD. The difference was moderate. It still held after a correction for running many tests. The groups did not differ in their attitudes toward food preparation or in how structured it was. An early gap in the overall food score did not survive that correction.
The authors also tested a model linking these measures. More ADHD symptoms went strongly with poorer executive function. The metacognitive part of executive function showed the clearest links to lower food-preparation confidence and less positive attitudes. The behavioral regulation part mattered more for physical and psychological quality of life.
The authors call the model results exploratory. A survey taken at one point in time cannot show which came first. Diagnosis was self-reported. The Hebrew food questionnaire was used for the first time in Israel and still needs checking. Medication types and other conditions were not collected.
The authors suggest that interventions for people with ADHD could target specific executive function components to improve food-preparation skills and quality of life.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Stern, 2026: food-preparation confidence, ADHD 66.41 plus or minus 13.99 vs non-ADHD 72.62 plus or minus 12.75, t(161) = -2.91, d = -0.47, p < .001 in text (Table 2 prints p = .00), significant after FDR correction.
- Stern, 2026: attitudes toward food preparation, d = -0.15, p = .36.
- Stern, 2026: structure of food preparation, d = 0.03, p = .86.
- Stern, 2026: overall food score, 129.40 vs 137.06, d = -0.32, p = .05, not significant after FDR correction.
- Stern, 2026: ADHD symptoms and executive function, beta = .79 for the metacognitive index and beta = .75 for the behavioral regulation index, both p < .001.
- Stern, 2026: indirect link from ADHD symptoms through the metacognitive index to food-preparation confidence, beta = -.35, p < .001, and to attitudes, beta = -.31, p = .01.
- Stern, 2026: indirect link through the behavioral regulation index to physical health quality of life, beta = -.27, p < .001, and psychological health quality of life, beta = -.37, p < .001.
- Stern, 2026: indirect link through the metacognitive index to environment quality of life, beta = -.27, p = .02.
- Stern, 2026: share of variation explained by the model, R squared 0.62 for the metacognitive index, 0.56 for the behavioral regulation index, 0.29 and 0.33 for physical and psychological health, and 0.06 to 0.15 for food-preparation outcomes.
- Stern, 2026: body mass index, no group difference, t(97) = 1.00, p = .32. What the terms mean:
- d shows how big the gap between two groups was. Roughly, 0.2 is small, 0.5 is moderate and 0.8 is large. A minus sign shows the direction of the change, not its size.
- p shows how likely a result this strong would be if there were no real difference; smaller values mean the result is less likely to be down to chance.
- t is the test score used to compare the two groups' averages.
- beta shows how strongly one measure moves with another in the model, on a standard scale.
- R squared is the share of the differences in an outcome that the model accounts for, from 0 to 1.
- FDR correction is an adjustment that makes results harder to count as significant when many tests are run at once.
Source: Stern A, Sharfi K. Food-Preparation Skills of Adults With ADHD and the Mediating Effect of Executive Functions. OTJR: Occupational Therapy Journal of Research (2026). doi:10.1177/15394492261459937