People always went on about teenage boys and food..... only NOW do I get it

[DrNick]

in the last six months suddenly.... I am doing two Tesco orders a week. I just cannot keep up with it. Previous portion sizes look like dolls house sizes.

they never stop!

I understand your anguish about teenage boys & their appetite; my baby brother was 6 ft before he was 12 & ate like I have never seen.

I thought I was safe........then my teenage daughter started ballet - it's one thing for a large(ish) youth to eat that much but this tiny slip of a thing barely 7 stone to eat 5 full meals a day!!

Don't get me started on milk. I swear we need a cow in the garden. We can go through a 4 pint bottle a day..or in less than a day. We have a mister nobody who sneaks into the fridge at night, makes hot chocolate/milk shake/a huge glass of milk and then leaves a dribble in the bottle for the next morning.

The same person is blamed for empty cartons of fruit juice, butter, etc left in the fridge too.

Oh I feel your pain. My daughter )19) was away training for a month and our food bill of £200 a week dropped to £140. And there was food left!

On another note, my sons mates often come and stay over after going out clubbing, and when they wake up I usually make them a pile of bacon rolls- six stayed over last weekend, so 12 rolls, three and a half packs of bacon. My question is, do other parents do the same? I think if you have guests you should offer breakfast but there's many a time he's stayed elsewhere and been offered nothing, and they all seem pretty well off - buying tuxedos for prom, sending kids on holiday, £50 pocket money...I just think its manners offering nothing at all.

Already, I have to tell DH which is DS1's plate of food, as it's generally fuller than mine. Then he has pud. He's only 10. He's begun to grow, though. Alarmingly (and expensively) fast.

La, la, la, la!!!

Ds is 12 and eats huge portions already.
Dd2 lives on stir fry and chocolate and dd1 seems to live on chicken fajitas and soup.

Watch this ladies. Dave Allen sums it up well

It's amazing how much they need. We're really fortunate that ds's school have started to give them a free cooked breakfast if they get in early so that has helped. Other than that is it all the things people are mentioning and a lot of peanut butter on wholemeal toast.

My ambition in life is to fill my fridge before they can empty it. It's not happened yet.

I think DP must still have screen appetite.
He's away this week done a food shop for me and ds cost 23.00 that included fresh fruit veg and cleaning products.
Normally if DP is home it's the 50-60 mark!

I've been advised to allow for a loaf of bread, a box of cereal and a large bottle of milk per day, just for picking in between "real" food.

Between three boys? No way - multiply that by at least a factor of 4 & add one more in for good luck.

Sorry, magimedi - I meant "each". The two weaned ones (5 and 2) can eat a loaf in a day between them already, if I let them.

I find it tricky. My teens are NOT bothered about food and are very skinny so I have to cook food they like that will tempt them to eat enough. ( age 15 and 16) My DS 9 however is a heavier build and eats more than the teens. So I have to watch him a bit as he could get chubby. It's hard to meet everyone's needs. People say don't pander to fussiness but my teens especially my DD would not eat enough if there wasn't stuff she liked. DS16 eats far too much sugary cereal but if I don't buy it he will skip breakfast which I think is worse.
I eat more than my 16 year old son except for cereal and milk - I am an active size 8 adult. Is that weird ?

My DS is 12 and has just gone to secondary. As far as I can see he has: Full breakfast at home - this morning a big bowl of porrige with full fat milk, butter and maple syrup then bagel and peanut butter; second breakfast at school in the canteen (2 hash browns and poached egg, I believe ); full school lunch - something like, curry and rice then crumble and custard; energy bar or jaffa cakes after lessons as he has PE this afternoon followed by cross country after school; full meal when he gets in about 5.30/6pm - say sausages and mash and veg plus yoghurt and fruit; a snack (toast and pb or cereal) at about 8.45pm. He will happily have seconds whenever offered/available.

As others say, he is small and slight, although he has grown about 3 inches in the last year, which is I think the driver to this. He has also had a big step up on the amount of sports he does.

It is completely counter-intuitive to the way I eat myself. He is as fit as a butchers dog!

I thought mine ate a lot but some of these stories are mind boggling.
I spend a small fortune on groceries. Big (£100 +) Tesco delivery every week plus Aldi top ups and meat from the market.

Both boys (15 and 18) are 6'2". They eat the same, but interestingly one is 10 stone and the other 11.5 stone.

My DS daily routine: is come in from school, check cupboards and fridge, get changed then starts eating, he can eat a family sized lasagne no problem

just got the second tesco order of $100 in ten days.

s2 for breakfast had FIVE weetabix without turning a hair, he is as skinny as a rake and is only 13

ime year ten is the major year of growth

I remember my mum going on about it, my 3 brothers ate cheese and milk constantly

My 3 yo can eat 5 weetabix for breakfast followed by a banana when he is having a growth spurt He usually only has two, with fruit and a brioche and juice. He eats adult size meals and large snacks every two hours (normally fruit or whole carrots). He walks for over two hours a day so burns it off easily.

I dread to think what he's going to be like as a teenager.

I have two boys, 14 and 18. The youngest is just gearing up to his Major Munch Years; the eldest is beginning not to be ravenous all the time! Packets of dried noodles, cereal, waffles and bread are their snack staples...
And I have cut my weekly big shop bill from £90+ at Morrisons to £60-65 at Aldi. Aldi is my friend.

Don't you just say "No, that's enough, we have to save some for leftovers" then?

I mean, I walk past a curry/casserole/etc I've made sitting in the pan an hour or two after dinner and could happily eat another whole portion but I don't, I save it for another day when I can't be arsed to cook.

Do you just keep feeding them infinite food when they say they're still hungry, because I don't let mine do that, I do wonder if I'm mean though :( and as I said, I am probably naive as he is only 5!

Bertie they feed themselves, as soon as they get in, after i have gone to bed, they are just starving all the time apparently. I do tell mine when things are of limits, but am not going to say no more toast if they want a snack.

This is why one of my current house hunting requirements is space for a HUGE fridge freezer.

XP's sister has teenage boys so I had the heads up on teenagers eating habits when 7yo DS was tiny.

Last summer there were five of us here. Me, DS, DDs 2, 3 and 4. DS accounted for half of all the food consumption. I realised this when he went back to university and couldn't understand how the fridge filled up with leftovers within a few days.

When he made himself scrambled eggs (daily) he used 6 eggs and a quarter of a loaf of toast. That was 'first breakfast' on weekdays. Then after that on weekends he had second breakfast, lunch, second lunch, dinner, second dinner, and then rummaging through the fridge at night. He worked in a furniture warehouse with his friends all summer, and the owner paid for their lunches every day.

Bertie they are genuinely hungry I think. And they can feed themselves. In the case of my DS, he never snacks on cookies, crisps or crackers or chocolate it's meals all the time, and not pot noodles either; protein, carbs, sometimes a fruit or veg. Protein is what he wants.

The DDs otoh will snack incessantly on pure junk if I let them and then turn up their noses at meals, so I curtail that.