Breakfast & packed lunches

[mysparkleismissing]

My son is in y7 and I'm not giving him dinner money anymore as he's eating shit and gaining weight which he really doesn't need to do already being overweight (but not caring)

I struggle to get him to eat breakfast and I have a feeling his packed lunches are gonna get really boring really quickly.

Previously he'd had £10 a week for school canteen he could get x 4 h3althier & balanced mains and small desert for this money but has chosen not to - getting snacks at break and pizza at lunch. Then when his money ran out taking a wrap in for lunch.

He says in the morning he doesn't know what he wants for breakfast/doesn't have time (doesn't get up early enough)

Any advice on what your teens do for breakfast or packed lunches at BIG school would be much appreciated

You're fighting a losing battle imo.

You're better off not making food a focus, particularly at school, but encouraging more activity and better eating (without any discussion) at home.

My experience with teens is that they'll eat what their friends do and they'll die on that hill, very few will step out of that box.

Get him active with you, as a family. Join the gym. Do classes. Get him seeing you move and enjoy it. Eat good dinners with him. Don't have food you don't want him eating in the house, but don't make a big deal about it, just crack on with it.

We’ve always been strict about breakfast so 15 year old ds is just used to eating it. He eats breakfast with us, we all leave the house early so we eat at 7am, I make him porridge as that’s what we all have.

Lunch at school is an issue in that they often don’t have much time and the quality isn’t great. But they do have baguettes option so that’s what he usually chooses.

Could you have a “family breakfast”, and make him a baguette to take to school , with some fruit for morning break?

Mine like really like baked oats. There's loads of recipes online, I make a batch and portion it up then they can either eat it cold or heat it up in the microwave. They have it for a snack as well.
Three days a week I do them egg on toast, a homemade McMuffin or an omelette.

Both quickly realised the school dinners are not healthy for them. One likes to take pasta salad and the other takes hot food (leftovers from dinner usually) in a flask.

Don't give him any money. Pack a healthy lunch to keep him going all day and he can take bits out if he needs breakfast once he gets there

DD has refused breakfast for as long as I can remember, she’s just one of those people that doesn’t like eating early in the morning and now aged 19 I can’t see that ever changing. The best thing that I could get in to her on school mornings was a glass of orange/apple juice to at least give her some ‘fuel’ so that’s what we did.

Her ‘breakfast’ would really be at break time with a cereal bar/croissant and fruit
She hates sandwiches so lunches had to be a bit more incentive than most..! She often had soup in a flask with crusty bread to dip, pesto pasta, chicken caesar salad, hummus and crudités, wraps etc

A bowl of cereal for breakfast takes no thought or effort.

Personally I think packed lunches will be a ballache for you so I'd let him eat what he wants at school.

I wouldn't worry about weight gain as in year 7/8 boys tend to have a massive growth spurt and go up in height so it evens out.

Honestly, don't push the breakfast thing. In my childhood and teens, I really could not face breakfast in the morning and still as an adult. I rarely, if ever, have a breakfast. However I still remember the lectures I got from my parents for not eating breakfast.

To be honest my son's diet got worse at secondary school. He's 15 now so almost leaving. If I give him dinner money he buys rubbish pizza, cake, chips etc.

For breakfast he has 3 weetabix or some bran flakes. Then he takes a chicken/ham/cheese roll or wrap, some crisps, a cereal bar and carrot sticks in for his lunch. He gets dinner money on a Friday.

So basically he eats a load of shit all day.

I do make sure he has a proper homemade dinner on the evening with veg and try to load him with proper food on the weekends.

Isn't there more actual scientific evidence that our bodies don't actually need breakfast? Something about blood sugar. Think cavemen times when they woke up, then went out to catch their food. 'Getting a good breakfast' was simply very clever marketing from cereal companies. Many many people prefer not to have it.

Although there is evidence that children perform better at school if they have had breakfast. What that "breakfast" consists of though is significant in my opnion.

Also kids who havent had breakfast before school tend to want to eat sugary crap mid morning.

Op l could have written this - all l can do is feed them healthy stuff at home, focus on exercise and hope it is a phase and they will start to make better choices. I have said school dinners only twice a week from now to minimise it.

I cook eggs for both of us on college days. DS isn't fussed if he 'wants' something or not if he's not cooking. He takes a wrap and a tin of pineapple for lunch. He did use to get things like pizza or a chicken wrap occasionally at school because it was quicker than hot meals, different queue.

Protein shakes were the only thing I could get into DS1 in the mornings when he was at school.

Both my two have a pain au chocolat and fruit juice for breakfast on school/college days and have done for years. They get lunch money for the week and I leave them to it, frankly.

They get a balanced dinner every evening, so I decline death on the hill of lunch choices.