To think it's often impossible to get teens to eat healthily and the sugar tax can't come soon enough.

[Toomanytealights]

Mother of 3 teens. I have tried to teach healthy eating habits over the years- weaned on mountains of fruit/veg,restrict processed meat and red meat,restrict chips and junk. Haven't banned sugar or overly fried foods such as chips and crisps but kept them to treats. Have tried to educate them alongside, all healthy weights with no fillings. So happy days you might think except actually they eat far too much crap and getting the good stuff into them is nigh on impossible. Rarely eat 5 a day these days,love crappy junk food and they use their pocket money / dinner money( when they used to have it)to buy crap. Yes I could stop pocket money but they are 14 and 13, policing is impossible and they actually need some independence. I'm not worried about obesity or teeth but diabetes and cancer.

This weekend ds bought a 5 guys refillable drink cup with his mates and just bought 3 packets of sweets for £1 and a pocket of Oreos for 50p. I have confiscated the sweets alongside showing how 6 Oreos is his daily sugar allowance which means no weekend waffles or strudel for tea. We only have puddings at the weekend and I don't normally give him a complete sugar breakdown,I was trying to make a point.

They have packed lunches and I serve fruit/ veg with every meal. It gets left and they will happily go hungry. They get very little pocket money but I'm under no illusions they will spend it at school or before catching the bus.

So how do people get their teens to eat healthily,where am I going wrong and will this sugar tax help? How will they police crap offers like refillable cups and 3 for a £1 on sweets?

Just to say I have tried my best throughout and I'm in no way trying to sound smug. I have no reason to be,my way clearly isn't working.

Not really.
Anecdotal evidence on this thread alone would indicate that the vast majority of teens go a bit haywire regarding healthy eating.
Are you saying we are all bad parents apart from you?

You sound obsessive sorry. I do keep an eye on what DD eats and her diet has definitely got worse since she became a teen but this is pretty normal (as teens in the 90's we were a lot worse!). I talk to her about nutrition and encourage her to make better choices (plus I don't keep too much junk in the house) but I'd never take sweets off her that she bought! Like any teen they are rebelling and taking things to extremes but if you keep giving them healthy choices at mealtimes so they get their vitamins etc they will be fine.

Let them be teenagers!

I worried about this a year or so ago. I now buy few or no treats. I buy digestive biscuits, which everyone likes but noone wants to binge on and lots of nice fruit. That's it.

If they have friends over I will provide cokes and ice cream.

Whatever they choose to spend money on is up to them.

Mine have gone from eating a pack of chocolate biscuits in an evening (3 teens) to snacking on plain Greek yogurt with berries. I feel quite smug actually

We've never really had biscuits in the house but I have reintroduced them recently.Dd was become Ng a food Dodger,out if the house with no breakfast,skipping school meals.I make sure she has one good meal a day( not a fussy eater thankfully) and stopped nagging her about not flushing the look so that I knew she was not vomiting.
She found the biscuits hard to resist and that resulting sugar crash had her heading for the fridge.
She seems to be leaving this phase and is having breakfast or smoothies,sometimes lunch and her evening meal.She has instead upped her exercise!
I have no doubt that once out if her teens and hopefully body loathing that things will settle.

Jeez op you’re getting a pasting here. Since when was being concerned about your child’s diet seen as ‘obsessive’? Seriously you can’t win these days. You either get told to ‘up your game’ (whatever Speakout ) or that you’ll inflict eating disorders on your kids if you so much as interfere! And we wonder why there’s an obesity problem... what on Earth is wrong. With teaching your teenagers the benefits of healthy eating an exercise? What is wrong with a bit of regulation ffs? I bet half of those on Slimming World / weight watchers diets are doing so because they’ve never been taught or encouraged to self-regulate and eat healthily.

They're teenagers, they're healthy weights and have no fillings. Let them eat sugar! Seriously, at that age they have incredibly high metabolisms, and unless there are other health problems, they really aren't at any risk.

I think you are right to worry - to a certain extent- but you need to be very careful how you handle it. I can remember my DM hiding food from me, even snatching a bag of half-eaten crisps out of my hands and putting them away for "another time". She was very opinionated about food, talked about my weight a lot and made me very unhappy. I wasn't overweight as a child but I have battled with my weight ever since and think it is largely down to my reaction to her attitude.

I do think that a lot of teens can overdo it, especially when they are out with friends and have a tenner in their pocket. I am quite shocked at the amount of food my teens eat when they are out but I try not to be too judgemental about it. If they have been out and have probably eaten a load of sweets, crisps etc, I make a big healthy tea with no pudding apart from fruit, nuts and plain yoghurt. However, I wouldn't say anything about it being because they had eaten sweets - that would sound like a punishment IMO.

I have 2 girls 15 and 17 - both have decided to become vegetarian - both have decided to be "no-crap" vegetarians - "rejecting the beige" as they put it. We are all eating a lot more healthily as a result.

Chocolate still has its place as a treat, but we have found that the girls make cake if they want cake - still has sugar etc, but much nicer and more "substantial" than shop-cake.

We all take our turns cooking - which is important to us as they get older - teaching them how to cook is as important as teaching them what to eat.

However, your efforts will backfire if you try to make your child feel like a bad person for wanting lots of sugar and they will hide the evidence of their 'shameful' desires and behaviour.

This is so true. I was an overweight child (parental choices not mine as I was only 7 so didn't control my own meals etc) and my primary school referred me to the dreaded school doctor because I occasionally bought a bag of crisps from the school tuck shop (like everyone else). I was "punished" by being put on a strict diet, i.e. whilst my family had fish & chips, they'd give me a salad - hence why I felt punished! I simply rebelled and started getting friends to buy me crisps from the tuck shop which I ate in the toilets - meaning I ended up eating far more crisps than I previously did in the open. Same at home, I started raiding the cupboards when my parents weren't in sight. That behaviour has continued throughout my adult life into my 50's and caused my obesity. IF, the school and parents had approached it in a different way, i.e. not making a big thing of it and "punishing" me at primary school, they could have easily dealt with the problem without me even knowing, i.e. more family exercise, healthier family meals, etc. But, basically, between the school, the school doctor, and my parents, they've buggered up my eating behaviour for life.

It's just a phase ,so I wouldn't worry too much because in a couple of years they'll be spending all their money on cigarettes and cider.

It's just a phase ,so I wouldn't worry too much because in a couple of years they'll be spending all their money on cigarettes and cider

soooooo true - but you forgot weed...

You can teach them all you like,we had sweet and crisps(unsalted ones when she was little) on Saturdays as a treat.My DD doesn't have many sweets now after 2 years of wearing a brace she stopped bothering.
But since she's been a teenager her eating has been erratic and at times worrying.She has all the healthy eating information and must now start to make her own choices.My job is to provide good food and keep an eye out for problem eating.
I think it was easier when I was a teen,we walked to school and used the money for sweets but less choice.We hadn't been bombarded with so many messages about healthy eating,avoid this,avoid that.That meant you are what you were given at home and also snacks weren't a thing.Fizzy drinks were a rare treat and barely water was the squash of choice.

It's just a phase ,so I wouldn't worry too much because in a couple of years they'll be spending all their money on cigarettes and cider

lol yes this

soooooo true - but you forgot weed...

I know but I didn't want to risk giving the OP a stroke did I.
Pst whatever you do don't mention the munchies!

NutElla5x

Speak our food is interesting and I have no need to up my game thanks.We've always been adventurous cooks,I'm a good cook and we have an interesting and varied diet. Makes not a jot of difference.The ds in question likes food plain,the plainer( and crappier it seems) the better. He frequently leaves spicier and more interesting food,preferring to go without.We did roast lamb in haricot beans and some fancy rub yesterday,roast potatoes,asparagus,peas and psb. It was gorgeous.He nibbled the heads of a few psb and the peas. Left everything else bar the lamb(eating round any bit that had touched the rub) and roast potatoes. I only cook one meal and they go without if it isn't eaten.

To the poster who inferred my dc are fat due to thinking the sugar tax is a good idea ,they really aren't.2 are on the skinny side erring towards underweight as they shoot up,1 is just right. None have any fillings.

Frozen I have no worries about weight,quite the opposite. I simply worry about what an abundance of sugar and crap is doing to their bodies.

Whilst you are right that a bad diet can cause cancer and diabetes, they are still young and will most likely one day learn self control. Like many pps have said, it's just a phase

Whilst you are right that a bad diet can cause cancer and diabetes

And in both cases, the associations are quite weak. It is not as simple as "eat this diet, get cancer" or, indeed, "eat this diet, don't get cancer". The relative risk of "bad" diets over "good diets" is small. It's not like smoking, where the relative risk lung cancer in smokers is massively raised, and the people who attempt to claim that sugar is "like smoking" are wildly exaggerating in bad faith.

So why is the gov worrying about it to the extent they're introducing a sugar tax?NHS site says healthy eating can significantly reduce your risk of cancer. Diabetes is linked to poor diet.

So why is the gov worrying about it to the extent they're introducing a sugar tax?

Sorry, are you using governments as a test of rational decision making?

NHS site says healthy eating can significantly reduce your risk of cancer.

For some value of "significant", and depending on your starting position.

Middle class parents worrying about their children eating Oreos is neither.

Excellent review article:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/

We conclude based on high quality evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCT), systematic reviews and meta-analyses of cohort studies that singling out added sugars as unique culprits for metabolically based diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease appears inconsistent with modern, high quality evidence and is very unlikely to yield health benefits. While it is prudent to consume added sugars in moderation, the reduction of these components of the diet without other reductions of caloric sources seems unlikely to achieve any meaningful benefit.

Um you might want to read the conflicts of interest at the bottom of that American report. The authors received money from Cocola,Pepsi,Kraft to name but a few. Kind of says it all really.

The authors received money from Cocola,Pepsi,Kraft to name but a few

One of the authors did. The other didn't.

But whatever. You can read the individual trials it synthesises if you want.