What on earth do teenagers eat after school?

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

15 yo ds, tall and skinny but filling out.
He'll come in from school and eat whole packets of biscuits - albeit his preference is for cheese biscuits - and pot noodles, slabs of cheese. Whatever cake and sweet biscuits he can lay his hands on. Needs cajoling into eating an apple. Very unadventurous with other fruit. Ok with veg as part of a meal. Won't touch soup or yoghurt. He wants to be a biomedical scientist or biochemist, so I thought I'd get him onboard with the whole healthy eating/body as a machine thing - but when discussed what he'd like/think is a sensible snack food he says "dunno".

DD(12) - canes pot noodles, and also has a very sweet tooth - unfortunately she has to walk past a sweet shop on her way home from school. I think she may have stopped growing, and is stacking on weight, which ee need to get under control. She's also not mad on fruit.

I find my DC's eating habits quite alarming! I'm veggie and wholefoody (was largely brought up that way). DH is medically advised not to eat raw fruit or veg - and the dc model him! They were weaned on humus and lentil bake, but are never happier than when they have a plate of roast meat and something involving pastry and custard for pudding!

There is a wider issue to resolve about how we eat as a family, but for now I'm thinking about after school. What can I give/leave the dc to eat after school that's a happy medium between healthy and tasty? I'm prepared to bake. They both have lunch at 12 noon, and we don't really have our evening meal until 6.30-7pm, so they need something.

I'm home a couple of days a week.

If you don’t want them to eat unhealthy processed food then don’t buy it. Pot noodles are dreadful.

As others have said, eggs, cheese, cold leftover meats, hummus, nut butters, real bread (not supermarket sliced bread), porridge.

Op I’m also vegetarian and my DS15 is almost veggie , DS13 very fussy but eats meat .

I make flapjacks with added milled seeds and oat and chocolate chip cookies each week . Also my sons get through significant amounts of nuts and dried fruit . Also popular is peanut butter and jam on sourdough .

I tend to keep Stoats bars in the cupboard just in case as they are quite calorific

Other than that as others have said I prioritise the fruit and veg at dinner time

i have a 13, 15 and 17 year old

We have a crimpet so they make toasties in the toaster which is a lot less faff than the toastie machine

toast/crumpets/bagels
cereal
biscuits/crisps/chocolate
fruit

DD will make things like banana bread/cookies

DS2 like things like chicken legs, mini sausages, babybels, etc

DD likes houmous and carrot sticks

The trick is to have things that are already cooked/cut up so easy to grab else they go the for easy biscuit

Mine put freezer stuff in the oven - hash browns, chicken dippers, that sort of thing. Or make a quesadilla. Bagels. Both older teens and very tall and growing! When I have time I make a batch of cheese scones and freeze them in bags of 2.

In awe of those of you who leave them healthy bowls of stuff, love that! I am not that good...

What about cottage cheese? It's filling, healthy, not exciting enough to encourage pigging-out and won't generate any washing-up.

The pot noodles came about as an alternative to sweet stuff. I've actually stopped buying those, in favour of those 50p packets of ramen noodles, which she can make up in a soup mug.

I'm trying to find a way of feeding ds and not over feeding DD. I do feel her, I'm the chubby sister of lanky brothers! She did a lot of sport until a year ago, but has been less keen since she started high school and got her period and roughly the same time.

Neither child would ever willingly eat salad! As I said in my OP, it's frustrating that dh shouldn't (and doesn't).

They can both do simple "things on toast", I need to encourage them to do this.

Off to cook some eggs and chicken (which one first??? 😃)

They got Crimpets in their stockings - one for wraps, one for thins. I've just put Thins on my shopping list.

I have a 17 year old boy who has eaten like you describe for the past few years.

Weetabix satisfies him for a little while hehe, big drink of milk too

And horrible!

Well I eat it (only Longley Farm, but they are local and it's everywhere) - had some in a jacket spud last night, to many "uurgh" type comments.

Toast. Get wholemeal loves that they can cut thick hunks from.
With peanut butter, cheese, mine used to eat a whole tin of sardines, tuna, marmite, cold sausage, avocado, anything really.

Big slices of tortilla: the egg and potato kind.

Cheese scones. Make loads and freeze.

Pasties. If home made you can put carrot, peas, swede in.

My teen girls are into being healthy after school they make themselves

avocados
grilled halloumi
pitta bread
hummus
bagels with low fat cream cheese
cucumbers
soup

They can only eat crap if you buy it, unless they have unlimited pocket money.

I have to say I never recognise this MN trope of 6’ sporty teenagers with seemingly hollow legs, troughing through a week’s shopping every afternoon. Mine (6’4” son of course and 5’9” daughter) would grab a bag of crisps or a couple of biscuits to put them on till dinner time. There was no way I’d be feeding them the equivalent of another meal after school.

one slathers the above in chilli sauce

I used to eat last night's leftover dinner when I got in from school as a teen, e.g. reheat a huge piece of lasagne and still manage a family dinner at 6/7pm!

I buy those ready cooked noodles in vacuum packs....then if my ds is hungry I chuck any veg I have into a frying pan, quick stir fry, add the precooked noodles and add a dash of soy sauce. Takes about five minutes

I find I make smaller dinners as they basically eat a meal when they get home from school. I used to be cross but now I go with it as that’s when they are hungry. Dh and I don’t want to eat until 7ish. Would rather they had a healthy small meal at 4pm and a smaller dinner than fill up on ultra processed crap to hold out until our later meal

Mine had a hot meal straight after school. Shepherd's pie casserole kind of thing. If I was at work I'd make it the night before. Then they had had something decent to eat. Later in the evening they could have something on toast, or some junk or fruit, but it meant they were less likely to binge junk.

Pasta salads are a winner here.

DS1 is 18 and will eat cereal or eggs.

DS2 is 13 and will have 3 biscuits, always 3!

Mine has a job so sorts himself out on the way home from school. Unfortunately I think Greggs features heavily.

The bigger a deal you make of it the bigger an issue it will become, commenting on your 12 year old’s weight like that is really unacceptable. She’s going through puberty and naturally of course she will bulk out a bit, she’s turning into a woman. She still has lots more growing to do, DD is 19 and has only just stopped!

The only thing you can do is to stop buying the junk and bringing it into the house. Having dinner earlier also helps, DD was always starving coming in from school so we’d have dinner around 5/5:30 to stop the manic snacking! She’d often have some toast or a pain au chocolat when she got home and that tided her over

I have a hollow 16 year old and a heavier set 9 year old holding weight ready for puberty.
My way of stopping a lot of it was simply not to buy it, and then they have to turn to a less shit alternative.

Little one will now usually be happy with a drink and a banana. Bigger one will eat whatever he can find leftover in the fridge, or, we usually have some soup on the go and he has that as well.

Make sure to push more liquid. Thirst and hunger give them similar feelings and my kids drink naf all at school so I usually deal with that first.

When I was a teen I would essentially eat a tea when I got in. Now I have toddlers it reminds me of a nursery tea!

But I would have:

A sandwich of some description
Egg/beans/cheese/peanut butter on toast
Bagel with soft cheese
Cold sausages with ketchup to dip
Hummus with carrot batons and a pita

With some fruit after and a yogurt.

My mum always made me sit down at the table to eat whatever I was having, and I think that's key to stopping the locust effect on the fridge.

Eggs. Fried, scrambled, omelet'ed.
Mince pies currently (as in the sweet Christmas ones, not beef and onion type ones).
Cake, biscuits, noodles. Ice-cream.
I've also started buying scotch eggs and sausage rolls. Very processed, but at least savoury!