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.

Mine eats peanut butter on corn cakes, cereal and dried fruit.
Ramen noodles aren't a bad choice - maybe a bit salty. You could try healthier versions or even just get her to make something from ingredients - itsu do cartons of soup broth which is tasty, have some cold cooked chicken in the fridge, spring onions and a dash of soy sauce.
Beans on toast or eggs on toast are filling and nutritious.
My older DSC consumed huge amounts of crumpets, cheese, wraps and scrambled eggs.

DS15 eats stacks of toast with butter & marmite, cereal bars especially the coconut ones, any sweet biscuits that are in the cupboard. Babybels, cherry tomatoes, satsumas, apples, bananas.

Any unguarded Christmas chocolates 😁

Then a full adult supper.

Anything he can find really. And there's not an ounce of fat on him but he grew four inches in 2023, so I guess he needs it.

I'm surprised. Teen boys eat extraordinary amounts. Maybe it hasn't kicked in yet for your two. Brace yourself. 😂

OP, I've always given my ds fruit for breakfast, together with toast & jam/marmalade/marmite. He'll happily eat satsumas, grapes, apples pears, pineapple (if I cut the rind off !)

Have you tried adding grapes to his plate. Or satsumas that are already peeled and segmented. They are so hungry at that age, that as long as they can just pick it up and put it in their mouths, they'll eat almost anything. 😁

Make a fruit salad. put it in a couple of pots in the fridge and say nothing. I bet it disappears !!

Mine would eat:

Cheese scones
Smoothies
Banana muffins
Apple and zucchini muffins
Mini bacon and asparagus quiche
Raisin toast
Crumpets
Homemade sausage rolls

I still do a large bowl of crudite for my teens to grab when they come in, sliced cucumber sticks, carrots, green beans, sweet peppers, cheese, tomatoes, avocado.
DS is in his GCSE year, so as he studies for an hour as soon as he gets in, l just plonk the bowl on the table..at least he has some healthy raw vegetables...then l am relaxed is l am working later and he resorts to a pizza!

Also l have very limited sweet stuff in as none of us can resist it!

Peanut butter sandwich or Weetabix and fruit here.
And a biscuit, hot drink and packet of crisps ...

Mine hoover up everything they can find. List of usual things below:

Pitta bread and hummus
Crumpets
Toast
Frozen jacket potatoes
Potato waffles with fried eggs and beans (yes, as a "snack")
Cereal - mountains of it
Wraps with sliced chicken
Pesto pasta
Crisps, biscuits, cakes

Apart from evening meals I don't feed them. I'm at work. I do encourage them to eat fruit and veg but I might as well talk to the wall. I put as much veg into evening dinners as I can!

Mine would have the healthier cereals - weet-bix, corn flakes, bran flakes etc; good quality high fibre bread toasted with some vegemite or peanut butter topping; smoothies made with high protein almond milk, cut oats and a banana with squirt of honey. Basically the trick is if you don’t keep junk like biscuits in the house, they can’t eat it.

Packs of ramen noodles are the same as pot noodles but without the pot. They’re no healthier (although less plastic so a bit better for the environment!)

@TheCurtainQueen - dd doesn't use the flavour sachets with the ramen noodles though, and it's a lot less plastic.

Mine like..

Pitta and houmous
Yogurts
Toast
Bagels
Smoothies
Cold cooked chicken / pepparami type things
Cereal
Occasionally fruit
Hot cross bun
Pancakes (scotch type that go in the toaster)

Toast with cream cheese and marmite, or cashew butter (or peanut if no allergy).
It’s easy, quick, has some protein and fairly filling.

Nutribullet milkshakes - banana, milk, Greek yogurt, frozen berries ( mixed or individual). Blitz

Mine will eat the healthy stuff if prepared into bitesized pieces! They are so lazy! So they would graze off a board of carrot and cucumber sticks and dips and they will eat apple slices if they are lying in front of them but they won't actively go to a fruit bowl!

If I don't want them to have sweet snacks then we can't have any in the house. They will often have peanut butter on toast or a cheese toasty or pate on toast. Occasionally we have things like sausage rolls in.

I don’t have a teenage boy but I have a DH with hollow legs. His go to post work/pre dinner snacks are

pate (smoked fish or meat) and crackers
hummus and pitta or carrots
cheese or cream cheese and crackers
fruit
any leftovers
salami
toast and jam/curd/peanut butter
Any baked goods lying around or from the freezer - panettone, hot cross buns, scones, cake, crumpets

If you are prepared to bake you can make cakes with fruit in. I do this for mine, they had some pear and ginger cake last week to eat. Today I have just made apple crumble. I always reduce the amount of sugar from what is in the recipe. There are loads of recipes like this out there and this is the only way I can get a variety of fruit into my DC.

I used to do a large pasta salad with lots of veggies and chicken and keep that in the fridge. Some days my DDs had pancakes, I made a batch and kept them in the fridge.

As pp have suggested- eggs, vegetables with hummus, beans on toast could work.

mine tend to make themselves a toastie.
or warm up a 'leftover bake' (mix whatever leftovers you have with an egg or two and bake in muffin cases)

fruit is eaten if I cut up and portion it out in a bowl per teen.

My teenagers laugh at me and say I don't have snacks in the house just ingredients. So no biscuits, cakes, sweets or crisps in the house. There are nuts, cheese, fruit (dried and fresh), bread, crackers, eggs, baked beans and salad stuff so they can grab something quick quite easily. But that has been the case since they were small so they are used to only having nutritious food available, it would be a much harder sell if your DC are used to having easy access to biscuits (DD2 will bake if she wants biscuits which slows down the process somewhat).

I should admit this may be true normally but 2 weeks after Christmas there's still a plentiful supply of xmas sweets in the house which is not being restricted. But once it's gone it's gone.

Neither of my secondary school kids will eat much at school for some reason. They both have a snack as soon as they get home (we have dinner late). Today they had:

DD: 2 slices of toast, pack of crisps, handful of olives, handful of grapes, the last mince pie

DS: 2-egg, potato, mushroom and onion omelette, 2 crumpets, big bowl of mixed salad with cheese, a pepper, a carrot, a piece of cheddar, handful of trail mix.

These are fairly typical. I encourage DD to include some fruit or veg with her snack, and buy in the fairly limited range of stuff she likes. She will try to get another packet of crisps later and I will suggest some fruit instead. Sometimes it works; mostly it doesn't. Like you, I worry about the choices she's making, but I don't want to do anything which undermines her bodily autonomy or imbues food with moral values. (We've seen severe eating disorders far too close up in our family.)

DS is mid-growth-spurt, but has always eaten a lot. Luckily he genuinely loves fruit, veg and cooking. I provide the food and nag about the clear-up, but otherwise he sorts himself out.

I'm not sure what to suggest really - I think I'm saying that in my experience, a big after-school snack isn't necessarily a bad thing, and if you can nudge them towards some slightly better options that'd obviously be a good thing, but maybe just make sure good food is available and don't worry too much for now?

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

This approach works less well as they get older, have their own money and can easily go to the shops. Better to work with them to find things everyone is happy with.

I used to eat turkey dinosaurs or those dolmio microwavable pasta and sauce packets. Or potato smileys with cheese on them. My diet was the picture of good eating.

Sandwiches, toast, apple/banana, any crudités they will eat, piece of cheese, leftover pasta.

Do they need a bigger lunch and or earlier dinner?

Agree...it's a lot harder with older ones. As long as the main part of their diet is nutritionally balanced, I think it's fine to allow some processed food or some fairly empty calories. My ds can eaten entire baguette!