How to deal with greedy teen?

[JemimaThePuddleDuck]

DS is 15.
He used to be sporty and fit, he was always playing out with his friends and was slim.
over covid he got into online gaming and he and his friends now just want to sit on discord calls playing games together every night, he doesn't go out, doesn't exercise and just wants to lie around watching YouTube or playing games.

He gave up all his sports and now spends most of his time in front of a screen.

I've tried to limit screen time, but it doesn't make a difference, he doesn't want to go outside or be active.

The main issue is his greediness and his weight.

Over the last six months he's become really greedy, like he can't control himself.
he's also gained weight, to the point where his clothes don't fit and I would consider him overweight.

It's definitely greediness, he's got into a habit of eating his packed lunch at break time, so by the time he gets home from school he is starving,
we always have plenty of easy to prepare food but he will go for the laziness option and stuff himself.

I tried to talk to him, discussed options and got in snacks he would like, but he will gorge himself on them.

Some examples,
He asked for specific cereals,
But he will eat the entire box, out of the bag, like it's a bag of crisps.
He asked for wraps and cheese to make quesadillas, he then ate two whole packs of wraps (16 in total) and a bag and a half of grated cheese, in two days.
He asked for instant noodles, he will make three packs at the same time in one bowl.
He asked for yoghurts, but will eat the entire multipack in a day or two.
He will make an enormous bowl of pasta, literally 250g (half a bag) of pasta and just have it with butter or pesto.
Multiple bags of crisps in one sitting.
More times than I can count he has eaten almost an entire loaf of bread either as toast or just bread and butter.

These are all for after school snacks, he then still expects a full meal for dinner two and a half hours later.

The biggest issue is he has gotten into the habit of eating his packed lunch things.

I pre make his sandwich's on a Sunday and put them in the fridge.
He takes a sandwich, a bag of crisps, an apple and a cereal bar to school.
I will quite often find that he has eaten all of the crisps or cereal bars or several of his sandwiches (not ones he's taken to school) part the way through the week.

This evening I have just discovered he had eaten two packets of his crisps and one of his lunch sandwiches,
we had a full roast dinner at 4.30pm, so he's had that and then helped himself to those.

I don't think it's hunger, I think it's greed and probably boredom,
He knows it's there and is lazy,
We have other snack food, there is a pack of cheese and onion rolls, yoghurts, other crisps, fruit and bread.
But he chose to eat his packed lunch sandwich.

I'm so frustrated.
I'm sick of buying food for him to gorge himself on and it be gone in a couple of days.
It's not normal or healthy, at this rate he will be obese soon.

I don't know what to do, I've tried taking to him, planning meals and getting healthier snacks in, I tried tough love, explaining his weight is an issue and he needs to stop eating like this, I've tried shouting, I've tried begging, I've tried hiding food and rationing it.... nothing has worked.

I don't know what to do, has anyone else been through this?

What does he have for breakfast? I'm guessing nothing if he eats his lunch at break. I think his lunch actually sounds too small for a teenage boy, I can kind of understand the ravenous gorging after school.
How about he has his dinner as soon as he gets in? Maybe more likely to have a smaller snack later?

I was your child and I was deeply unhappy. My mother shouting and begging made the whole thing so much worse. For gods sake, stop being judgemental and start thinking about him and his feelings.
How do you expect him to react with you begging and shouting and telling him he’s fat.

He needs more protein if he's growing. My 17 year old nephew is eating six eggs for breakfast at the moment.

Get more protein based snacks for him and see if that slows him down a bit.

I think the first thing you need to do is to stop labelling your child as greedy.

This isn't a greed issue, more likely a mental health following a pandemic issue.

Speak to your GP, with or without your child and take next steps from there.

However, PLEASE don't hide or limit food. You'll make things a whole lot worse

What’s he eating for breakfast op? And I also agree that’s a pretty rubbish lunch for a teenage boy who’s in school all day. It’s something I’d throw together for my 5yo if I couldn’t really be arsed that day, and he’d probably still be hungry. He needs a decent breakfast, a healthy and filling snack at break and a decent lunch. I’d put in far more protein and wheat based carbs, also some dairy.

So he's eating because he's bored. What are you doing to alleviate the boredom?

Sounds like his diet needs a complete overhaul. Get rid of the over- processed carbs like noodles. If he is eating white bread and margarine, get rid of that too, and change to whole meal bread and butter. He needs far more protein, as well as fruit and veg

To be honest, he doesn’t sound greedy in particular. He is likely to be growing, and maturing, bones getting much heavier, muscles not keeping up etc. it is perfectly normal to need far more rest, and a higher quality diet, at this stage.

Teenagers eat a lot. I have 2 of them. They cost me a fortune. What I do (because I'm on a very tight budget) is tell them "there's 2 weeks worth of crisps. If you eat them all before 2 weeks are up there are no crisps." There is plenty of other stuff though so they aren't going hungry!
Why are you making his sandwiches, and a week in advance? Don't they go soggy?

Was the roast lunch or dinner? If I'd fed my teens at 4.30 they'd be hungry again before bed!

I’ve just had a look at what my 13yo is eating through the school day. She doesn’t have much appetite in the morning, so she’ll have a homemade smoothie before she leaves and takes a cereal bar to eat on the bus. On her first break she’ll generally have some sort of pastry like a croissant. She buys a proper school dinner so for eg 3 random days last week was a chicken curry with lentil and lemon rice with onion bhajis and naan bread, a full roast dinner with all the trimmings, and a pasta bake with salad and garlic bread. And she still comes home starving after a full day at school. I wonder if he’s overcompensating if he’s starving all day at school, he might be coming home and binging while he can.

F. Having similar with Dd

I dunno OP, I was as skinny as a rake at school and could eat for fun. Teens need a fuck tonne of calories or at least that was true of me and I weighed about 8 stone. It's not greed, its growth.

I was also going to mention this but I forgot. His diet sounds really shit. Numerous mentions of loads of sandwiches, whole loaves of bread, cheese and onion rolls, huge packets of wraps, whole bags of pasta, multiple packets of noodles, plus crisps and a ridiculous amount of cereal. All sugary, starchy, fattening rubbish. You really need to rethink his entire diet

Breakfast he has either a breakfast sandwich, (English muffin, two eggs, veggie sausage and mushrooms.
I batch cook these in bulk so we always have a load in the freezer to microwave for breakfast.)

Or three eggs scrambled with toast.

It has gotten to this because I've spent the last 6+ months trying to figure out why he is suddenly eating like this,
I've tried talking to him, I've tried helping him make better choices, I've tried finding out why he is gorging himself like this, nothing works.

I end up spending a fortune on things he says he wants, making sure there is more than enough in for him for the week, we agree on a plan, and then he eats it all in a day or two,
Including stuff meant for his lunch box.

And when I ask him why he just shrugs and either lies or says he was hungry.

I'm not shaming him or judging, I'm concerned and frustrated.

He chooses what he takes for lunch,
We have plenty more in he could take, but he doesn't want it.
he also has money on his account to buy himself something at school from the snack shack.
He chooses to eat his lunch at break time and then get a snack at lunch time, because they have more time at morning break than lunch break.

What do you suggest I do, he's 15 not 5, it's not like I can keep him entertained.
He's got books, friends, homework, a tv, a dog, a garden and a computer.

He spends most of his time watching YouTube on his phone or playing online with his friends, he's never unoccupied, I'm assuming it's boredom eating and greed because I don't believe it can always be hunger, especially not when he ate a huge roast dinner this afternoon.

Stop buying snack food. Arrange for him to have school lunches and make sure he has a decent breakfast of wholemeal toast or porridge and fruit. Stop buying sugary (and expensive) cereals..

I also have a teen who would play video games all weekend if I let him. I insist he does a swimming lesson on a Saturday morning and a martial arts class on a Sunday afternoon. He can stop either if he wants but must replace them with some other sport - non/negotiable.

Oh gosh op I could have written your post! My teen is the same, ears shit constantly and won’t get off his computer.
we have just spent a week camping and he’s spent the entire time romping around a field with his brother and cousins playing all sorts, it’s been a major eye opener. Home today and he’s done 12 hours on his computer.
the food isn’t the issue. The lack of a life is. Bit I don’t know how to encourage him to change it when he doesn’t want to :(

Is he actually overweight or just changing shape as he becomes more adult?

Tbh it sound pretty normal, a group of teens in your kitchen is like a plague of locusts.

Why did you let him sit around and play video games for 2 years???!!!! What a waste! You could have been going for a walks or hikes, doing online fitness classes, golfing, swimming, cooking healthy meals together, anything!! You had an opportunity to bond and instead you sat back and let him get lazy and fat. And now you clearly don't like him - how many times did you write "greedy" lol, I think you meant hungry!!! Teen boys are hungry. Cook him some pasta and protein. The packed lunch you describe is less food than my 7 year old gets!

He diet is pretty healthy generally.

We only buy wholmeal bread, and olive or avocado oil spread.
He's a vegetarian and eats a lot of fruit and veg.

The snack stuff is just options that he requested to have after school because he was literally getting in and eating an entire loaf of bread and making things that were meant for meals because he was "starving".
So we came up with the plan where I would get in things he requested that were quick and easy that he could make in a couple of minutes to keep him going until dinner.

A average day of food for him would be

A breakfast sandwich, English muffin. Two eggs, veg sausages and mushrooms with a cup of tea.

A cheese, hummus, roasted red pepper, avocado and salad sandwich, a bag of crisps, nutragrain bar, apple or banana.

Either a vegan sausage roll, muffin or flapjack from the snack bar at school.

Dinner, this week we are having three bean, tomato, sweet potato and spinach stew with soda bread.
Tofu, broccoli and peanut noodles.
Lentil and walnut bolognaise with whole wheat linguine.
Quinoa and blackbean chilli,
Lentil Swedish meatballs with mash

There is always plenty of fruit, yoghurts, bread, cereal, hummus, veggies, cheese and crackers, some kind of sausage or cheese roll, popcorn, crisps.....
there are plenty of options for snacking, but he chooses to eat his lunch box items.

The roast was dinner, we started at 4.30, but had a starter so it was after 5 when we had the actual roast.

He'd had some pizza for lunch.

I tried that, told him this is all you are getting, if you eat it all there will be nothing else. he still ate everything within a couple of days and then just ate his lunch stuff or made himself huge portions of pasta, cooked things from the freezer, ate things mean for dinners or ate all the bread we had.
I tried it multiple times before admitting defeat.

I tried splitting it up into separate containers, each tub was a days worth of snacks, he just ate several days worth at once,
If I took the other days snacks away he would eat that days and then make himself something extra or eat stuff meant for dinners.

You’re cooking incredibly healthy food there op, if he’s eating it all and the snacks on top I wouldn’t be too worried. Mine doesn’t let anything remotely fresh pass his lips!

I can’t follow what you think the problem is OP - is it that he’s boredom eating, that he’s overweight or that he’s eating stuff that is meant for later /another time because he’s a teenager a bit lazy?

He point blank refuses to go back to his sports or start new ones, I can't force him.

He won't have school lunches, the veggie options are rubbish and he refuses to eat chips every day as "it's unhealthy" I have pointed out the irony.

If I take away his devices he will read or lounge around in his room, it won't encourage him to go out or do anything else.

I've even tried paying him to do a sport or at least take the dog for a walk to get exercise, he'll walk the dog but won't do a sport again.