Greedy teenager

[Brownthomas]

I remember being a teenager and I was very self centered & preoccupatied.

Our 15 year old is out of control with food. He is average weight etc but needs to eat everything in the house.

Today I asked him not to eat the food for his brothers birthday party this week, but I didn’t mention the drinks .,,, I’ve just found a 12 pack of Capri sun demolished in his bedroom.

They don’t even that good I have to specifically ask him or else he eats all the food in the house

He's eating and drinking from his own home - he must be hungry or thirsty to be doing it

Ah yes, you quite right. Nobody has ever eaten or drunk because they’re bored or just fancy it, or to suppress difficult feelings, or because it tastes nice or out of habit or greed. No, everyone only eats or drinks if they’re genuinely in need of sustenance.

And nobody should ever consider the needs of those they live with, they’re perfectly justified eating and drinking all the treats to themselves, regardless of who else in the house might want some.

15 year olds can eat you out of house and home, he might be having a growth spurt and perhaps needs it?
I hate capri suns but my teenage dc love them, shopping delivery 8pm, 10am next morning box of capri suns completely empty. They will have to wait til next week for their next fix🤣
but i would be annoyed if I'd specifically told them not to touch something I'd been saving

Normal to eat loads and continues. The Capri suns may be a bit too much though!

I haven’t yet as he’s still asleep! We won’t see him until around 2.

Well wake him up . Its shame he can’t lie in, but unfortunately he drunk all the Capri Sun and they need replacing. He can go back to sleep afterwards if that’s something you find acceptable in your home.

@sixthtimelucky

It's not 'boys will be boys' crap. Teenage boys eat ALL THE TIME. My 18 year old can get through about 10,000 calories a day and he's slim and muscly (v sporty too).

More than an Olympic rowers? Well, okay, at the upper limit 😂

I found that laying out specific food for guzzling was the way to do it. I roasted a chicken and left it in the fridge for them to snack on. They could have that and sliced whole meal bread for toast or egg noodles or fruit. The rest was for specific dinners and they had to check first.

Get him to go to the shops and replace things he's eaten you out of, with his own money if it's a treat. Helps him realise that it's a hassle to run out of stuff.

@LurkingStill - my parents were very controlling around food so I've never made mine 'ask' for food - I see it as much theirs as mine. I like my teen to be able to cook himself some supper if he is hungry without having to ask specifically for all the ingredients. However he never takes food from the 'end of the kitchen' where I put things I don't want touched. He also checks if he's not sure if something is for a meal and only takes his share of treats. He also cooks dinner for us 2-3 times a week so has a good understanding of keeping things for meals.

If a teenage girl was doing things like this people would be suggesting she had binge eating disorder, I suspect.

Teenage boys might need a lot of food but no one needs to steal all 12 of the Capri suns.

“My 18 year old can get through about 10,000 calories a day and he's slim and muscly (v sporty too).”

@TheMarzipanDildo

If a teenage girl was doing things like this people would be suggesting she had binge eating disorder, I suspect.

Teenage boys might need a lot of food but no one needs to steal all 12 of the Capri suns.

Three of the four teenagers I fed were girls. They all ate like horses. No eating disorders. Two were dancers and the sheer calorific needs of being a teen and a dancer are immense. And the third is a ski racer. One of my girls could easily tuck away an entire baguette and reach for the next one. And my boy buys those giant picnic sandwiches made with an entire loaf of bread sliced through the middle. I assume they are supposed to be for families. He’ll eat half for lunch (half a full loaf) and the rest in the afternoon. None of them have an eating disorder, none are overweight. We do need to stop telling girls who have healthy appetites that they must have eating disorders.

The replies on this thread would be totally different if teen DS was teen DD.

I have brothers and my friends as a teen were mostly boys. They did eat more than usual, but it was plenty of toast, boiled eggs etc, not multipacks of capri sun and entire boxes of doughnuts. No teenager HAS to eat so much junk, growing boy or not. Bet if you bought bags of apples instead of crisps and cake, all these teenage boys would suddenly be happy to wait for dinner

It's not 'boys will be boys' crap. Teenage boys eat ALL THE TIME. My 18 year old can get through about 10,000 calories a day and he's slim and muscly (v sporty too)

It is boys will be boys crap if they are specifically eating all the treats or a whole box of one thing, leaving none for anyone else.

I don’t care how thirsty he was. Unless the capri sun was the only fluid in the house he could have had water, or any of the other drinks o/p said were in.

A whole box of doughnuts, leaving one fore everyone else to share? Not hunger, pure greed. At 15 he could make himself beans on toast, pasta, cereal..again unless those doughnut were the only food in the house he has 1, then has something else if he’s hungry.

It isn’t a boy thing, it’s selfish toddler behaviour refusing to share.

@UndertheCedartree - Maybe that was the wrong way to phrase it. I meant more like inform me than ask for food e.g I'm making toast/cereal/eggs now. What I was getting at is that it's not a free for all and I was surprised at the amount of people who excused it with ''Teens do that/perfectly normal'' type comments. They make their own breakfast and lunch, food is not restricted but they would never dream of drinking all the cartons or eating all the doughnuts because we expect them to be respectful to the rest of us in the house.

My DS15 eats everything! Capri Sun are vile but not very big. We used to lock food away from SD when she was 15 as she was worse! Teenage boys are notorious big pigs though. Just make him ask first or have a 'help yourself' cupboard. DS has a fridge in his room. He gets his supplies on shopping day and once they are gone they are gone.

I've got teenagers.

They eat lots. It's normal.
Sometimes they eat all of one thing in one go (like the 12 pack of caprisun). They're teenagers, they might be old enough to know better but their teenage brains don't work like that. Again, I'd say it's normal.

That's not to say that it's not selfish, annoying and thoughtless. I'd still be having words, and they are not too old to be told off.

There must be about 200 cal in a Capri sun so that is over 2000 calories in just liquid.

There’s 60 calories in a Capri Sun.

I agree that it is selfish, but drinking 12 in a weekend is perfectly doable, without much effort. You’re lucky to get two good gulps per carton. 😂

I agree with a PP, you should have woken him up and sent him to the shop for more.

Slightly off topic but when I was in Greece last year they sold 2L bottles of CS. They were sooooooo good 😋

The majority of Teenagers are always hungry even if (or maybe especially if) it's for empty calories.

The majority of Teenagers are selfish and self absorbed.

Being male or female doesn't have any sway on the above two facts.

My two are like locusts. I don't buy any 'crap' anymore. They can eat anything in the house but if they want snacks (ie crap) they have to get up, get dressed and go and buy it themselves. There is always pizza, pasta, chilli etc which I portion into tubs and put in the fridge as 'snacks'. After that they are on their own!

I'm always surprised by food related threads on MN. It's like a window into another world.
I grew up in the 70s/80s with four older brothers. There's not a chance my parents could have afforded for them to "eat them out of house and home", so they just had the normal three meals a day, same as the rest of the family. They've never said that they went hungry, it was just the norm.
My ds1, now 22, didn't eat massive amounts either - just ate along with the rest of us, and didn't seem to have far greater calorific needs than anyone else.
Ds2 is 13, and eats relatively little. His appetite is small, and I'm happy to let him regulate his own intake. I also have two teenage nephews, and they're not big eaters either, so I really don't get the thinking that this is just what all teenage boys do.
It's only on MN that I see this huge appetite thing, where teenage boys are "like locusts", and "inhaling food" as soon as it arrives in the door.
I certainly wouldn't restrict food if I thought for a minute that my sons were hungry, but they just don't seem to be anywhere near as hungry as the boys I read about on here.

Agree JockTamsons that MN is a different world, where money seems unlimited and nobody has any problems hauling massive quantities of fizzy drinks etc back from the shops, and where it would be impossible to say to a child: "this is the food there is, we have spent this week's food budget".

It might be because they're bored - if you can get them to be more active/do more activities, that might help :)

I can remember being a teen (just). I am 55 and female so was never a teenage boy :) I remember my parents coming home with the weekly shop and excitedly helping them put it away and then snaffling up the bits I fancied, normally french bread and cheese or ham, I don't remember my parents being cross about it, but I was really greedy and selfish at that stage. I then had 2 boys and a daughter and they all were the same to a degree when they were teens. My eldest DS is 27 now and he came round last night to see me and I happened to mention I had some ice cream in the freezer offerring him a bowl, he ate the whole tub! He is 6ft 2 and although not skinny he isnt fat...I think he just hasnt got an off switch and has to finish the lot.

Having said that the same DS who is working from my home at the moment as his house is being rewired often brings lunch with him for me and him, and has said he is bringing coffee and danish pastries tomorrow for us to share so he isnt selfish

JockTamsonsBairns, are your DSs physically active?
My DS was involved in three sports and probably consumed about 3000 calories daily. He grew to just under 6 feet and his feet grew to the biggest men's size you can boy off the rack in the space of about two years.

My eldest DS is 27 now and he came round last night to see me and I happened to mention I had some ice cream in the freezer offerring him a bowl, he ate the whole tub! He is 6ft 2 and although not skinny he isnt fat...I think he just hasnt got an off switch and has to finish the lot.

Wow, that’s incredibly entitled and selfish.

I CANNOT imagine going to my parents house, them offering me a slice of cake and me just deciding I’ll finish the whole cake.