Teenage food

[MoreCoffee52]

Im trying to loose a lot of Weight. Im Half Way. Lost 16 kiloes since Christmas 🥳
But I have 16 to go. I'm alone with teenage daughter and she is not impressed with the daily menue - I eat a lot of vegetables, as in oven baked red beets, carrots, onion, haricot verte, peas, whatever greens. Steak or grilled chicken- and for her, potatoes, feta and bearnaise. (Example but usually varied as this)
She want a lot more pasta. Cream. Cheese.
And I happily buy and point out she is welcome to cook all she wants.
She, on the other hand, think it is my responsibility as a parent to cook for her taste and she is not to be "left to fend for herself ".
Who is wrong? As it is, she eat frozen pizza, chips or pay for take away while feeling very neglected . She is 16.

Six months is still pretty new when you're a teenager and your mum has cooked for you and catered for your every whim for sixteen years, though.

I think the problem is you changed it all at once - type of food, you expecting her to cook etc. it's a lot when you're sixteen even though it seems like nothing to an adult.

I’m a vegetarian. My 14 year old loves meat. So i cook veggiemeals and he is happy to cook/bake/grill the meat. We are actually having a good time together in the kitchen.

But we al eat healthy food. Maybe one cheat dinner a week. But being a teenager doesn’t mean you have to eat rubbish. Make a fresh pizza together , fresh pasta sauce with lots of veggies.

I would try and cook something she likes together.

You can have a little bit of pasta and tomato sauce (home made) with a side salad...

I don't know how you arrived where you are with her eating habits. But it's time to change things gradually!

My DC were helping with cooking on and off from about 3-4 years of age. (That's from selecting the order carrots & potatoes are chopped over frozen pizza to making a simple dish like pasta bake.)

Well she’s plum out of luck then. She’d best get a job and go out to eat if she won’t cook. You’re definitely in the right here! Your parental responsibility is to provide her decent food, not cook for her own personal fast food cafe.

Agree with her. Explain that your parental responsibility includes providing healthy food for her growing body, as you are doing, and supporting her transition to adulthood - you want her to be a happy, healthy and successful adult, you see it as your parental responsibility to help her do this, and allowing her to develop life skills, rather than treating her as a baby, is a crucial part of her growing up.

You're doing great things for your health by switching to a more nutritious diet because (I guess) you reached a point where you wanted and chose to do this. At the moment, the change of diet probably feels like it's being imposed on your daughter, and perhaps that feels like a criticism to her - you wanted/needed to change, she experiences that change by having different foods being presented for dinner, and maybe she interprets that as you thinking that she also needs to change, which is usually hard for teenagers to take from their parents! You've given her the option of cooking for herself, but does she already have the skills to do this?

Could you also be honest and open with her about your change in diet, if you have that kind of relationship? If you can find a good time, perhaps tell her your motivations for changing what you eat (as brutally honestly as you can manage to be with your daughter about why you wanted to lose weight), whether you found it daunting at first, whether you felt you'd miss the McDs or the cream or whatever else you're eating less/none of, if it took you a while to get to like the taste of beetroot, or greens, or something else. If you can bring her a bit into what you're doing and why, she might feel slightly more 'in' on the change.

YANBU OP.

You are cooking healthy meals which she is welcome to eat.

You are cooking separate food just for her several times a week.

You are willing to let her buy and cook her own food if she wants to.

She's 16, not 6, she's more than capable of cooking pasta.

My mum hates cooking and basically stopped feeding us in the holidays as soon as I was old enough to make sandwiches.

She'd be quite hungry in my house, with that attitude.

Thank you all.. I will continue to cook food she like 3 days a week and continue to encourage her to cook what she likes the other days if she won't eat what I cook.

She has an older brother, 20, who moved out and he eat everything I put in front of him. He don't care if it is pasta or vegetables- it is free and he don't have to do it himself 😂 He eat with us 2-3 days a week and also try to debate her reasoning but she say it is different for her because she is still a child 🙄😂

Mmmmmm, she's a one that is going to have to be dragged into adulthood and personal responsibility kicking and screaming, isn't she?!

Yep! - besides all the perks that come with age, she accept those 😂

Oh yes, they are always happy to receive those. . .

Maybe she needs to realise how much she’d benefit if she ate the way you do! She sounds very immature. I wouldn’t want my teen eating frozen pizza and takeaways all the time. So expensive and unhealthy. She’s not a child - she could be a parent herself. I’d provide basic foods in the house she can make herself, but otherwise she should buy her own food if she wants something else - and work to pay for it.

If someone played the "parental responsibility" card with me like that then I would remind them that by that logic in 2 years time they would be an adult with responsibility for cooking, cleaning, paying for and housing themselves.

Or, if they fancied it they could have a more managed transition where they take on some of the stuff more gradually over time as they get older.

Their choice.