AIBU - how much does your au pair eat

[Ridgeview]

I don't know if IABU but our au pair eats a lot. To the point that I have changed supermarkets to be able to keep costs down and it takes food away from the DCs.
For example, yesterday she had 3 southern fried chicken breast, half a packet of fresh spaghetti and 2 chocolate bars for supper.
She'll have scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, pizza at lunch and then a large supper.
I have started to write a menu for what the DCs are having for supper so she doesn't eat it.
However, this doesn't make much of a difference.
Our previous au pairs never eat this much and I am finding it hard to keep up.

My sons could and would eat that but not my daughters. Half a pack of fresh pasta is standard as is a whole pizza (although it very much depends on which brand). Two normal size choc bats sounds greedy though.

What brand of chicken breasts was it? I'm curious of the actual size.

I have often been amazed at how much my lads eat. They are tall but skinny.

I've seen quite a few threads about parents complaining about how much their au pairs eat. I suspect it's mostly because the parents aren't used to the amount of food kids in their late teens eat.

Teen Your partner is a man.

I would suggest she has to eat downstairs (food in bedrooms is disgusting) and eats with the children. Pasta is dirt cheap dried, but that and write down a list for what she needs each week rather than the run of the fridge

So this person is building up an appetite by caring for your kids and you begrudge them a decent diet and good meal?

Here's an idea. Sack them, quit work, you can then build up the appetite and try to survive on 2 slices of bread and a mug of water.

@ridgeview in that case....

As other posters have said, eating in bedrooms is not a good idea. Your au pair should be eating in the kitchen or dining room only. You are also well within your rights to limit her consumption of protein as it is expensive and unnecessary to eat too much meat. Do you eat vegetables in your family? Her diet sounds awfully unhealthy.

A decent diet? 3 chicken breasts would challenge my 6ft 5 DH!

Aupairs don't get paid enough to buy their own food. So if this is how much she eats, unfortunately you have to find a way to make it work.

My skinny teenage son eats more than you've mentioned and he's not particularly tall. Some young people's metabolism is incredibly fast.

I would definitely buy more potatoes, bananas and cheaper pasta. She might be eating more because she's lonely. Has she made friends yet?

That is an insane amount of calories! The number of posters normalising this is disturbing!

Scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, whole pizza at lunch, whatever the dc have at dinner, then three chicken breasts and half a packet of pasta? Two chocolate bars, plus snacks in her room. Do people teenagers really eat that much every day?!

Au pairs deserve to be fed a healthy, balanced diet - the same healthy, balanced diet that the host family should be eating.

We wonder why there is an epidemic of obesity in this country. The idea that it's ok for teens to clear a fridge because they are skinny! These are habits for life. I don't ever remember eating way more than I do now in my teens and neither did my teen brother or sister. We wouldn't have been allowed for a start.My parents bought the weekly food to prepare meals with, not for us to gorge on. We always had a decent cooked from scratch meal every night and I don't remember being hungry.

I have noticed a lot of the young adults I know eat odd unbalanced combinations of food. 3 chicken breasts, spaghetti and no veg/salad or fruit is not what I would call a meal really. Can’t you meal plan with her involved and buy her things that go together and she likes?

Does she clean her own room? If she has an eating disorder she may be stashing any wrapped long life snacks like chocolate bars for binges and out of a fear of not having enough when she "needs" it, not eating them immediately.

I don't think you should limit what she eats or at what time, but I do think you can say no food in bedrooms - for anyone.

A relative of mine's anorexia spiralled out of control when she went abroad to be an Au-Pair - it was undiagnosed before. She began over exercising to an inhuman degree and barely ate, and her host family mother initially praised her for making healthy changes, obviously having no idea what was going on. If your Au-Pair ist unhappy and isolated an eating disorder is not unlikely.

The right reaction to an eating disorder is rarely to tell the affected person they're a greedy pig eating you out of house and home though...

Do you think an eating disorder is likely ridgeview ?

getback

Let's not forget we only have OPs word on what AuPair is eating.

Scrambled egg could be a single slice of toast and one egg

Whole pizza could be 8" pizza that OP thinks is huge, not 20" pizza.

Spaghetti isnt exactly filling and 3 chicken breasts depends entirely upon their sizes which we don't know.

2 chocolate bars... Well shit me.. I can easily swallow 2 bounties, 2 twix etc in a night.

The pps that are saying it's a lot are thinking she's eating 3 chicken breasts. She's not. The southern fried birds eye things are much smaller. And everything mentioned there is cheap fast food.

Bloody hell. And now she's got an eating disorder

Is it possible she has a metabolic disorder. Or tapeworm? At any rate that seems to behind much sheneedsso there isn’t really anything you can do about it.

Spaghetti isn't filling?

whitesoxx I have no idea what Birdseye chicken breasts are specifically. My wondering whether she has an eating disorder is more triggered by an experience with my own relative and the fact that this woman is spending all her evenings shut in her room alone, and takes her food in there to eat alone. Especially if she has an ensuite this is absolutely ideal for binge- purge cycles to become a habit, and likely in this age group if she's miserable and isolated.

OP, based on my personal experience that I won’t go into here I’m of the opinion that anyone working in your home eats at least what the family members eat and if they need more it’s available to them.

Is the au pair eating too much? Well, as the mum of now grown up children I would say that 20 year olds can be bottomless pits.

Im sorry but I think if you’re having to niggle about food this much then you can’t afford an aupair.

We had an au pair who turned out to be bulimic. She was eating an enormous amount and throwing it back up. I don't understand the comments that 3 full size chicken breasts for dinner and a full sized pizza at lunch is normal. That's not normal. Chocolate bars she should buy with her own money. She does get paid for that sort of thing. And no, 2 bars a night is not normal either. At any age.

Toucan she's not eating 3 full size chicken breasts. It's more like one

For a 20 year old that's not a lot of food. It's not the healthiest but it's not a lot

MonkeyToes of course we only have what the OP says to go on. That's how MN works. Second guessing and coming up with our own theories of the truth is a bizarre thing to do. People come in here with a question. Answer the question. Don't start invalidating the question by questioning the truth of it. What's the point of a forum if you are going to naysay the actual question. 'My au pair eats a lot '....'no she doesn't, you are a liar' is a freaking weird response on a forum.

What is her complexion like? Pale? Spotty? Do you clean her room? I have to say I would suspect something is wrong and she has an eating disorder.

Does she have a social life? Is she happy? I think you need to tread very carefully. But suggesting no food in the bedroom could be a good start. But definitely keep an eye out for secret eating if you do.