12 year old snacks excessively at friends

[Yorkshiremum80]

My DS has a best friend whose house they will often play at as he lives next door to a big park where they can play football. However the friends parents are a lot more lapse about in unhealthy snacks than we are, and being 12 DS's willpower isn't great. The mum is also quite insistent when dishing out the snack. She herself is very overweight and has a bad diet, she's a friend of mine. She'll think nothing of taking her kids for a huge pile of chocolate covered pancakes before dinner time. DS is often coming home from his friends house not hungry or not able to eat much of his dinner because of the snacks. If this is every now and then it's ok but as the summer holidays approach I fear this will become more regular. Don't get me wrong we allow chocolate and unhealthy snacks just not all the time and not just before dinner. I'm not sure how to tackle it, I don't want to create issues around food and good Vs bad food because I believe it's all in moderation but how do we get around this. My DS's friend has put a lot of weight on and is quite unfit so I can see the effects his diet is having.

Have the friend at your house and you take them somewhere they can play?
Not sure you can address it without causing huge offence tbh.

I think at 12 you can put this on him. He can snack. But if he stuffs himself and won’t eat dinner then that’s a waste.
Or you can send him with a snack and ask the mum not to feed him. Say you don’t want him costing her ££?

At 12 years old he should be perfectly capable understanding that he either stops eating like this or he can't go there anymore.

Make sure he’s as full as possible before he goes out to play? Twelve year old boys spoon eat a lot but I think he has to take some responsibility for what he eats.

I've offered this but they are almost 13 and want to be at the park but themselves where they can play football. They are a bit old to go with mum unfortunately

Interesting you say that, I'm leaning towards this but wasn't sure if it was too harsh. Parenting is so hard sometimes 😂

I think it's fair enough to have a conversation with him about it at 12. You don't need to make it about good v bad food- you talk about food as the fuel our bodies need in order to be healthy and strong and some food is going to have a higher value to our bodies than other food and he needs to think about how much of each he's eating so it's in balance. If he's eating too much snacky food or at the wrong times that he's unable to then eat more nutritional food his body is missing out and that will affect him in other ways - feeling tired, poor concentration, getting sick more often, etc etc. You're really just explaining to him how his body works in a neutral way.

If it keeps on happening after that I'd say to the mum if she's your friend, please don't let him snack when he visits as you're making dinners which are going to waste and take it from that angle.

I would have gotten a strict telling off from my mother if I was stuffing my face with unhealthy food and then not eating at home. Sometimes you've just got to be strict!