12 year old overeating junk, how do we handle it

[Feelingfrustrated40]

Myself and my husband don't have a good relationship with food. We are both very overweight. We felt it was very important that our children had a healthy diet and so far that has worked well. They are both fit and healthy and are on the 50th centiles for both weight and height and always have been.
This past year ( probably triggered by the start of puberty) my son seems to be hungry all the time. He eats his 3 meals a day but then wants multiple snacks inbetween.
We try not to buy junk food but there are certain things in the house for my daughters lunchbox such as cereal bars, multi pack of crisps for the week, for example along with her sandwich, fruit etc.
These bars , crisps are kept in a tub. I would go to it a couple of days after I'd been shopping and filled it up and it would be almost empty. I was cleaning his room and found an entire carrier bags size full of empty wrappers hed taken from the tub, eaten upstairs and then hidden the evidence,
Since then we have had a few conversations with him about healthy eating etc and when he asks for a snack we offer healthy options etc.
He had adhd / asd just to add. He's very impulsive and seems to struggle with self control. We are seeing huge meltdowns over this. He will ask us repeatedly for a snack, maybe 10 times a day. And when we don't let him have what he wants he kicks off.
We have now resorted to hiding food from him so that others in the household can actually have a chance to have some for themselves. I don't want to continue lile this , it's driving me mad and causing a lot of arguments.
He doesn't have his own money or rarely but often a friend will buy him chocolate or something from the shop. At Xmas the children did receive a large amount of chocolate from family. Our daughter still has most of hers. He'd eaten the same quantity within 7 days of Xmas.
I don't want him to spiral out of control eith this but I don't really know how to handle it because of my poor relationship with food. I've told him surely you don't want to end up like me? Any advice?

Sounds pretty normal to me. I have a 13 year old boy and he eats absolutely loads... he is growing so fast and is constantly hungry and just powers through the fridge!! He also plays a lot of sport. It's not uncommon for him to have dinner then four slices of toast before bed. He hasn't piled on any extra weight as he's just growing. He is very hangry in the mornings too but settles down once he's eaten. All his mates are the same, they all eat bags of sweets from the shop after school.
We just keep lots of healthier type snacks in like rice cakes/popcorn/loaves for toast/bananas that he can just grab when he's hungry and we now buy biscuits rather than chocolate snacks such is rate he goes through them.. it's much cheaper.

I meant to add, we buy a large amount of healthy stuff such as fruit etc and he wont touch it at all

My DS is 7 and also has ASD/ADHD and has a compulsive eating habit that we really struggle with too OP, along with meltdowns when we refuse. We now lock all the snack type food away. We find it is worst when he is at home for long periods so we are trying to get him out and about as much as possible.

Fruit is a rubbish snack for me. Wholemeal toast with Nutella? Omelette? Health but still filling. Things that might fill him up. Don't have crisps and biscuits in the house. Too difficult to monitor this. Just buy them when you need them I.e. picnic for a day out. Hopefully he is just hungry as he is about to grow.

well fruit doesn't have the calories/fat that he needs as he's going through puberty

Buy stuff like mini sausages, sausage rolls, tins of tuna, cooked chicken and make up a bowl of stuffing for sandwiches, loads of cheese, toast with marmite or jam or Nutella, pasties, supernoodles, bananna with peanut butter on (try it it’s delicious) sweet and salty pop corn, spaghetti hoops or beans on toast, pasta salads . Ok so lots of these things arnt healthy but it’s far better than eating huge amounts of sugar that’s in chocolate and biscuits. Plus it just rots the teeth. As long as he’s not stacking on weight he needs to eat eat eat esp if he’s into sport.

A pot noodle on toast was my DH snack of choice as a teen and he’s a s thin as a rake

Are you feeding him enough protein? A high protein diet will help him feel fuller for longer. I would say, try to offer loads of protein and only a small/moderate amount of carbs for the main meals. Eating loads of carbs makes you crave more carbs afterwards. When this happens, it's easy to get used to grabbing a high carb snack and most unhealthy snacks are high carb. Eating protein and vegetables help sustain healthy blood sugar levels, is more satieting and will be a better diet for him in his growth spurt.

I think it sounds normal too. I have a very hungry teen and I try to give him more protein. Eggs for breakfast, cheese and apples for snacks.

If he gets chocolate gifts it is all gone in moments.

He is tall and thin.

just keep him building his body on healthy natural food. No processed / junk or very little

He’s just at the start of that age when they don’t stop eating, which is fine because teenage boys need A LOT of food. But you need to make sure it’s the right kind of food, crisps/choc are not going to fill him up. He needs to have high protein stuff. Peanut butter, sandwiches, sliced meat, noodles, full fat yoghurts, jacket potatoes with tuna etc.
But make sure he is hungry and not just bored/eating out of habit or because it’s nice.

We already have in all the foods mentioned above. He's not hungry when he asks , he admits he's not . Its boredom or habit mostly. We will stick with what we are doing.

Normal.
DS (14) has grown 6" in a year, and is still going. He's currently 6'2". I try and get him to eat cheese, oatcakes, chicken legs and hard boiled eggs before he cracks into the confectionary!