Do you force your teenager

[ItsLightheartedHonest]

To eat food they don't like for their evening meal?
For example, if you are having a relatively unhealthy evening meal such as sausage, chips and beans and you know your teen hates sausage do you serve it to them and expect them to eat it or would you replace the sausage with something equally unhealthy like chicken nuggets etc?
Said teenager is not overweight, and generally eats plenty of fruit and vegetables.

Wouldn’t give them something I know they don’t like, what’s the point? It’ll only get wasted

If my teens don’t like what is being cooked then they cook their own. No forcing….

No I wouldn't want to be forced to eat something I don't like. I will generally do meals we all like, if we fancy fish or anything spicy then I will do teen something else.

If I had a teen then no, I wouldn't. I was never forced to eat food I didn't like. I don't see the point of having a battle.

I wouldn’t eat food that I don’t like so I’m not going to make food that I know my teenage son doesn’t like and then expect him to eat it! I just make food that I know we all enjoy!

Absolutely ridiculous- no one in their right mind would bother with this and not sure why u r calling sausages and nuggets unhealthy

Absolutely not.

If they don't like or want what me or their stepdad is cooking for dinner, they are welcome to make their own tea.

How do you force a teenager - or anyone for that matter - to eat?

Of course not. I don't see why I would force someone to eat something they hate. There are meals that only some of us like and we eat them when the others aren't around, or sometimes cook alternative versions - similar to your choice of sausages or nuggets. If someone just isn't all that keen on a food (not a real hatred) then they would still get served it though. We try to mix up things though so we wouldn't have 5 nights of meals that the same person wasn't keen on.

No, no one is forced to eat anything they don't like. In that example I just wouldn't cook sausages for them, they could sort themselves something else out, either with the baked beans and mash or something completely different.

No - i would strongly encourage ds1 to try something. But wouldn’t force.

No one should be forced to eat food they don't like.

Because they are nutritionally poor.

No, we don’t try to force anybody to eat food they don’t like.

We just make sure there’s something available for everyone that they’re reasonably happy to eat. That sometimes means one person fending for him/herself. Not a big deal

No, much like I don't force food my 7 year old doesn't like.

I serve similar meals, either swapping out the protein or the carb so that everyone has something they like on their plate with the expectation that they try the other option.
So in this instance, yeah I'd swap the sausages for another protein source.

Nope.
I was made to eat meals I hated and not allowed to leave the table.
still have painful memories and have since been diagnosed as ND.
my kids are both ND so I never force them.
Just painful for everyone

No, they serve themselves. I expect them to eat a proper meal though. It can be any component of it. But they need to eat food and they need to eat what they serve themselves. I have one whose eyes are bigger than her stomach. She will go for seconds and then decide she doesn’t want it. I tell her to eat it. If you take it, you need to eat it, but I don’t care what it is. If they don’t want to eat a decent meal (and that can be any combination of what is on offer), they don’t get pudding, if there is one. Same as when they were toddlers!

I grew up being forced to eat food I really didn't like and as a consequence I have never made my kids eat anything they don't like. I was just wondering what the general consensus is these days and it looks like, as a society we have got over trying to feed kids things they actively hate!

I don’t give them anything I know they don’t like. For example, dh and I are having chicken Caesar salad for dinner and Ds is having flat cheesy garlic bread and salad and prawns. I wouldn’t want to be given something I hate / don’t like for dinner so I don’t expect that of my dc either (Ds is 14). As they get older they can do their own thing - dd is 22 and lives at home and just does her own cooking.

Why would you force someone to eat something they don’t like? I am making salmon for dinner tonight, my DH doesn’t like it so I will be making him something else!

I taught mine to cook from their early teens so the general rule was if you don't want what I'm cooking, you sort yourself out. My youngest could cook a cracking roast by about 13, and the middle one would eat anything that involved pasta. Eldest ate anything so always had what I did.

I too was basically forced to eat things I didn’t like. It wasn’t a positive part of childhood, and thankfully seems to be dying out now as people realise the damage it can do.

No, never.

We were always served what my stepdad preferred. Belly pork, looking anaemic and you could still see the hairs on the fat. Broad beans still in their greying shrivelled shell.

If we didn't finish we'd have to sit there until we did.

It was never finished, Mum would finally cave, stepdad would rant about starving Ethiopians and that was an hour of homework or revision time wasted.

Neither of my kids like baked beans - a nutritious, protein packed, fairly healthy and cheap staple. I wasn't going to force them.
It was spaghetti hoops for one, and then I realised youngest didn't like anything saucy, even ketchup, so it was usually peas, broccoli and carrots - whereas eldest wouldn't have entertained that and everything with sauce.

I started cooking the family meals at 12 and got paid 60p a day. We didn't see belly pork or marrowfat processed peas under my watch! I think my Mum was secretly pleased.

There's a difference between just not fancying something today, never having liked it and never will, and hasn't tried it enough but it's a staple food.
Neither of my DCs like mushrooms and they are welcome to eat around them.
DD doesn't like potatoes much (except chips and very very smooth mash) but I'm not making an extra carb for her. We ask her to eat one or two just to keep trying them.
DS doesn't like rice but again, we put it on the plate and ask him to try it. He's added several foods to his (moderately restricted) diet this way over the last year or two.

Absolutely not.

I wouldn’t want to eat something I don’t like and wouldn’t force any other human - especially one I love - to eat something they didn’t like

that would be awful behaviour

I was forced to eat stuff. I remember being forced to eat spinach and scrambled eggs on two different occasions, but both of them made me actually physically sick. I love spinach now but scrambled eggs still turn my stomach at the memory.

I have never forced my kids to eat anything -- I have served them food they don't like and encouraged them to taste it, but always said "don't eat it if you don't like it / don't want it." That was when they were younger; as teenagers I ask before I cook whether it is something they want to eat. If not, they make their own.