Breakfast

[mumnosbest]

Do you insist your teens eat breakfast before school?

DS 17 and DD 14 would much rather have an extra 20 minutes in bed or doing their hair than eating breakfast before school. They then get a 10 o'clock snack at school. DD 10 has also tried this but while she's at primary I insist that she has breakfast as she won't eat until lunchtime.

It really plays on my mind but the older two seem quite happy with this. Do your teens eat breakfast. Should I insist?

I always remembered eating breakfast through my teen years - can't remember if my parents needed to 'insist' that I ate breakfast though.

If they're happy enough and it's not impacting majorly on their energy levels/health/concentration at school, I would just encourage them to have breakfast but not necessarily insist. Can they have something quick to grab on the go on their way to school like granola bars or a banana?

None of my teenagers could ever eat breakfast. I think their internal timings mean their bodies do not fully wake up until later in the mornings.

I pack them off with nutritious snack bars they can have at first break.

I make a basic flapjack type bar with added mashed figs, seeds and nuts. I also add pea protein powder to sustain them. They cost very little to make. The shop bought ones are £2 each .
I can make 10 for that price.

No you shouldn't insist. Some of us feel worse if we eat breakfast and assuming there are no special needs, it makes no sense to encourage children to eat when they aren't hungry. It's far better to teach them to listen to their own hunger cues.

fine to send them off with a snack breakfast to have at morning break or on the bus

I never ate breakfast before school, I'm just not a breakfast person and it apparent my two are heading the same way. They get something to eat at 10.30. They have to leave at 07.20 so it's early to make yourself eat if you're not hungry.

I stopped eating breakfast as a teen. Still don’t eat it as an adult. Some people don’t wake up feeling hungry, so prefer to eat later. If it’s impacting nothing else, I’d leave them be.

I wouldn’t push it. I’ve never been a breakfast person and as a teenager I’d get up earlier than everyone else in my family so I could put a bowl in the dishwasher and say I’d had breakfast to avoid the conversation. I’m in my 30’s now and still don’t have anything more than a cup of tea before lunchtime. On threads with toddlers people are very keen on intuitive eating, and not forcing children to eat beyond their satiety cues, and the same still hold true for teenagers. Let them know there’s breakfast options if they want it, and if they want you to buy them anything in for breakfast to let you know, but otherwise they know their bodies better than you do.

I never ate breakfast in the morning as a teen, it used to make me feel sick.
If they’re eating at 10am, that’s fine, it’s just a late breakfast.

Tell them the health benefits of breakfast and Google with them the research to prove better concentration etc, then leave them to make their own decision.

If they'd rather get more sleep then go to bed earlier.

If they would rather spend the time in the morning working on making themselves gorgeous then get up earlier.

Breakfast can take just 5-10 minutes. It is a small proportion of their day to bring the benefits.

I remember being told it kicks off the metabolism for the day. I got it on my head that I'd be less likely to be fat.. that was enough for my teenage motivation 😂

I remember being told it kicks off the metabolism for the day. I got it on my head that I'd be less likely to be fat.. that was enough for my teenage motivation 😂

And yet, it has no actual basis in fact so why continue to encourage them to do something that they don’t want to do?

If they eat something at school at 10am then they are eating breakfast, albeit a late one.

Don't insist. If they're eating mid morning they're not going to starve. My DSC were like this and would literally get up just in time for school and grab a cereal bar on their way out of the door.
DD on the other hand gets up early enough for 2 courses and juice and cannot understand why anyone would skip breakfast. It's her favourite meal😄
I think that the breakfast dodgers are much more common at this age.

Although, in the news today.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62797773

Similar to @Beamur! mine started to get more invested in breakfast as a meal when the options expanded to include smoked salmon / avo toast and poached egg / porridge with berries and nuts / whatever. It was much easier in lockdown and have made a rod for own back with exotic fruit platters rather than eg a banana and bowl of alpen but am also increasingly conscious of ultra processed food and trying not to screw them up with the terrible nutrition I had. (Am a lot shorter than both parents which I think is reasonably unusual; blame bad diet!)

Thanks all and @Beamur that's a really interesting and reassuring study. I think as we both work and the DC are all at school we are definitely 'evening eaters' and don't have time for a huge breakfast.

I don't insist on it but I offer it and he usually eats it although we went through a phase last year when he didn't. I do insist on a drink though and he usually has a hot chocolate. And yes, I know it's sugary blah blah but it perks him up a bit. Other than that, he will have potato waffles with cheese on them or a hot chicken wrap - not typical breakfast foods but take literally minutes in the air fryer.

He's 15 and he's just 'better' with something inside him before school

@Beamur 's article is kind of what I was getting at with the metabolism theory. If you have a decent breakfast you're less likely to snack later on.

Modern(ish) breakfast was an amazingly successful marketing ploy. Bacon and eggs for breakfast was invented to encourage the sales of bacon, pure marketing and nothing else.

Kellogg invented cornflakes to encourage a Puritan diet, in other words to stop masturbation.

There is very little science behind breakfast, it's a matter of personal choice.

You see I find that breakfast kick starts my metabolism and makes me hungrier in the morning. I’m always hungry at 10am regardless of whether I’ve eaten breakfast or not. Maybe letting your metabolism sleep in isn’t so bad?

We just stock up on a huel subscription, the teens grab it if they want something, and I'm happy they are getting vitamins and minerals they may otherwise not get.

It's very healthy to have a longer overnight fast and not to eat until lunchtime. It's breakfast cereal companies that have convinced us of the 'most important meal of the day' and financed all the the 'research' that supports it. My 13yo DDs don't eat breakfast and very little lunch at school, but they eat well In the evenings and aren't losing weight so I try to go with the flow.

I have 3 teenagers. One eats breakfast every day. Quite a large one. The other sometimes has a small breakfast, sometimes not. The third never eats breakfast before heading off. I leave them to it.