I left my 16 year old at home for 24 hours and he ate...

[mrsm43s]

A ready meal (mac & cheese)
A pot noodle
A family sized pizza
A full tub of 40 cocktail sausages
At least 2 big buckets full of buttered popcorn (maybe more, but only evidence of two pots where he melted the butter).
4 and half bags of crisps
Several bowls of cereal (I'd guess about 3 or 4 from the number of bowls left)
Multiple rounds of toast/sandwiches- about half a loaf worth, with a mix of fillings - choc spread, jam, cheese, soft cheese
A block of feta
A 2 person packet of fresh tortellini
and something chocolately that came in a plastic tub that I can't remember what would have been in there, but there was definitely cocoa powder residue in the bottom of the container.

He did not eat the cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, hummus, apples, grapes, bananas or yoghurts.

He's as skinny as a rake!

I'm not complaining as we were away on a Uni visit with eldest, and he was alone overnight for the first time and the house was still standing, the cats and dogs were fed and let out appropriately (the dog wasn't actually walked, but we went early evening to early evening, so we've walked her early Friday then late Saturday and she's only a Chi cross that doesn't need hours of walking), but no poo, so he def did garden runs with her. The house was pretty tidy apart from the stack of dirty crockery and empty food packaging.

How would your 16 year old son have fared?

And this is why I feel I spend my life food shopping. Teenage boys are like locusts. It's fascinating.

The youth of today are so tame, love it! Sounds like he had a wonderful time gorging on all his favourite foods just because he could!

True but if that was me at that age, my parents would have quite rightly been pissed off that I wasn't responsible enough to bother walking the dog, washing up after myself or even putting my own rubbish in the bin. Yet the OP is 'not complaining' as 'the house is still standing'.

If you bothered to read her OP, you'll see she says early evening to early evening

I have x4 teenage boys (13-17) and they are always eating. I get two large supermarket deliveries a week. They are all skinny.
Your DS sounds totally normal.

We have left our nearly 16 year old and 17 year old over night. The 17 year old would not eat anything other than maybe porridge and fruit but the youngest would eat loads. They ended up eating loads as the youngest made food for her sister the whole time knowing that she would not bother.

I don’t know why people are saying he definitely had a party, my son sounds very similar to yours and would definitely rather talk all night online with his friends rather than have a party.

I'm more concerned with the fact that he didn't wash up/load the dishwasher.

Exactly! Very restrained teen!

He sounds lovely OP.

My 14 year old doesn't eat that much unless it's pizza but he eats FAST, I put that down to having to eat fast at school. He would have probably taken himself to the shop and bought loads of share sized gummy sweets and then hidden the empty packets under his bed.

He either had friends round or he has an eating disorder. Do you restrict food? And yes, I have had 2 teenage sons with open access to all food and they would never have binged like this.

Sounds about right. We left our 17 year old for two nights with two mates. Bought them a few beers. Came home and they had left us the beers but cleared fridge 😁

No teen is consuming that many calories a day and is thin. Unless they’re training all day. It explains why there’s so many fat kids/teens around. ‘But mummy said I’m skinny.’ 🤣

That’s a crazy amount of food! I remember being left regularly as my parents did these massive fairs and I didn’t like going with them. I only ate breakfast and dinner and whatever treat my parents bought me.
I’m amazed at how some kids can just eat and eat and never gain weight, was he not ill after all that food?

I've got one that would've matched that and one that would only have touched the chcolately thing in the tub - both skinny as they come!

Why in earth wouldn’t you? I lived alone at 16, paid bills, shopped for myself and everything!

we leave our 15 and 16 year old home alone all the time!

The under eating is annoying but I can confirm that every single teen boy I know eats absolutely shedloads and they are all slim. (My DC is 15, heading for 16). The OP is no surprise to me at all, and seems positively normal for that age group.

We live rurally though so they are walking to school, playing football or in the gym after school and spend most weekends either working on family farms, riding horses, hill walking or kayaking during the day. Yes they have tv/gaming time in the evening but are an outdoorsy bunch during the better weather months right now.

Not a single one of them in his gang shows any sign of being overweight and they can empty a fridge faster than I can say "who ate all the ham".

Maybe he can be trusted?!

i have a 15 and 16 year old. We leave them alone often. They wouldn’t even think of having a party!

My parents went on holiday for 2 weeks when I was 16.

I was also regularly left for weekends.

I was also in the family "rota" for spending weekends at my dementia ridden gran's to take care of her.

I hope you don't have kids if you expect so little from them that you wont leave a 16 year old alone.

😂😂😂
I think your mythical sons are probably the exception not the rule

You need to teach your son to clean up after himself.

Mine would have eaten the tomatoes, houmous, grapes, bananas and yogurt as well.
Plus decimated the milk and any and all packets of biscuits.
I used to dread leaving my twins alone in the house for any length of time.
I was bankrupted by them in their teens.

For those who sucked air through their teeth at the thought of leaving teens alone at any time, I left the boy twin at about 9 for an hour cos he was sensible, the girl twin couldn't be left til 15 cos not at all sensible.
Let's all gasp in horror.

Parents of teens aren’t all naive. I have two teens 15 and 16. They would not dream of having a party or having anyone round without checking first. Wouldn’t occur to them. We leave them regularly on their own. I’m not naive I just know 100% they wouldn’t do it. The consequences wouldn’t be worth it for one thing!

Oh do shut up @BackstagePass he obviously doesn't eat like that every day, but he was on his own and made the most of it. In the same way I sometimes go mad when I'm on holiday. And lots of teens do have incredible metabolisms and hollow legs.

Seems reasonable to me: ready meal and pot noodle lunch on the first day, pizza for dinner, tortellini lunch the next day. Everything else half hourly visits to the fridge/cupboards for snacks - especially if he was up all night gaming and was eating through the night too.

as I have said on previous occasions the way to tell your uni student has come home is the empty fridge & the multiple bags of washing & when your younger teenager "helps" you unpack supermarket shopping they inhale the 4 boxes of juice before they hit the fridge
We use to have a pizza place near where we use to live - they had a buffet of as much pizza as you can eat - I reckon my son & his friends were the reason they went bankrupt (age 14 at that stage) also skinny lads

She's just glad he didnt eat the feckin dog as well

Actually quite happy I read this. My 2 year old son doesn't eat anything really but now I can hope maybe he'll end up like your son and actually eat.
Seriously my brother was like that as a teenager, still is and he's nearly 50 and still skinny as a rake. The amount he eats would make most people ill I swear but he just doesn't seem to feel full or put on weight. (Very unfair IMO!)