Clearingaspace
we live miles from anywhere and my boys think nothing of a 14km round trip cycle ride to buy crisps and chocolate bars with their allowances (that's just how far it is to the nearest shop). I also buy the ingredients for baking in large quantities and they can always bake - tbh mug cakes only take 10 minutes and they also do incredibly quick chocolate chip cookies. I'd never try to stop them but I don't think there's any harm in having to put a bit of effort in rather than eat junk mindlessly 🤣 I'm somewhat amazed they don't snack on the chocolate chips but they police baking ingredients between themselves somewhat (there was a long discussion on whether it was legitimate for DD to put chocolate chips in her yoghurt, thus leaving too few for the cookie recipe, or whether she should be buying her own especially as she has a driving licence and car...)
My own mother was incredibly and minutely controlling about food and I don't want to be like that - three of her four children have or have had seriously disordered eating and two full blown eating disorders - including life threatening anorexia and hospitalisation for one of my siblings. She obviously had eating disorders herself, passed on from her own mother and probably going back further (all my great aunts, born well over 100 years ago, thought the biggest compliment a woman could receive was the observation she ate "like a bird" 😕 and was "a slip of a thing" ...
My mother insisted that (having almost force fed small children and praised "good eating " as a virtue) once girls started puberty they should have half portions (down to half slices of toast) for fear of the absolute worst outcome - getting fat. She gave me a smaller plate than my younger siblings when I started my periods and less food, and would only give me one roast potato (the same as her) when men, boys and prepubescent girls had 3 or 4.
She removed our Easter eggs and doled them out over months as "pudding" in miniscule pieces, and threw them away when they went white with age. It was torture and led me to binging in secret, outside the house, on huge quantities once I had the freedom to buy my own chocolate - I'd never have brought it home because of the judgement and shaming.
I don't know what the right way is tbh. I know it isn't my mum's way! Banning things or severely rationing them makes them disproportionately desirable. However I didn't want to go completely to the opposite extreme and have cupboards full of ultra processed ready to eat snacks especially as I'm not always home (shift work) and it's teen human nature to live on junk if it's just sitting there...
Also when I'm chronically tired but stressed too and want to stay up and have an hour to myself I replace sleep with food given half a chance and if it's not in the cupboard it's that bit less likely I'll go out and buy it rather than go to bed!
I always have multiple loaves of bread and packs of butter in the freezer as well as what's open so tbh the boy teens often have a million toasted sandwiches when I'm out which is also hardly healthy. And they make themselves flatbread pizzas for lunch or just a snack in a few minutes with flatbread and passata and grated cheese, so barely better than stocking the fridge with frozen pizzas! They do a lot of sport though 🤣
DD is massively sporty and cooks elaborate, healthy meals - and she's nearly 19 so really I have no authority over her food except that whoever is home eats together at the table in the evening, which everyone sticks to without complaints.
It is indeed hard to find the right route.
My kids have all had a brief slightly chubby phase - DD and DS2 at 12-13 and DS1 at 14-15, but the older two are healthy weight and very active indeed, the youngest has a little bit of a tummy at 13 now but also does a lot of sport and cycling and hasn't started his big growth spurt yet, hopefully he'll be fine too, I don't think he's actually overweight.
One thing that I think is definitely important is never, ever commenting at all on their body shapes unless they actively and very specifically ask. I think our generation of parents know that but my mother seemed to think body shaming and it's twin, appetite shaming for women and teen girls, and pointing out weight loss or anyone "lovely and slim" or women who appeared to have tiny appetites with gushing approval was at the core of good parenting of teenagers. Which accounts for a lot.