Teenagers won't eat breakfast. What do yours do/eat? Help!

[Monty100]

My two teenagers, dd 16 and ds 13.11 leave home quite early for school (7.15am) and they both refuse to eat at that time of day. They take drinks/crisps/fruit/cereal bars with them, but I don't feel right about this.

What do yours do?

Same age daughters, same habits! Except no crisps, I still try to keep it "breakfasty", to invent a word. Bagels and smoothies are good too. I keep promising myself I'll get up early to make them bacon sandwiches to take, but I never do .

My eldest leaves even earlier so I can understand her not wanting food then.

It's certainly not a vanity thing or I'd be more worried.

i see loads of teenagers go to our corner shop on the way to school and stuff themselves with crisps and mars bars

That's why I'm the food police

Mine can't eat at that time, neither can I TBH.

DD sometimes has a bit of dry cereal with dried fruit but, mostly, she takes a slice of bread and butter with her and an apple or pear. It is not great but, tbh, it is probably better than most sugary cereals so I am not too worried about it!

I honestly think teens are designed to eat more later in the day. As long as they are eating plenty of healthy stuff later on I would not worry to much - maybe just cut out the crisps and keep it as breakfast like as you can?

mine took cereal bars when they were at school as i was adamant that they should eat in a morning.

trouble is - they ate them when they came home too so they went fairly quickly.

anyway...twins are now 16 and wroking.atcollege - if they don't eat - they will be hungry....they are 16 and i'm not forcing them to eat breakfast anymore ( esp since i don't)

i have to say though at 13 mine would eat cereal, though i bought lots of diferent kinds and put them on the table with the milk in the morning - so they ate it.

Mine would leave with nothing unless I told her to eat. I actually don't care what she eats, I just want her to eat something. After that Dr Regan programme where it showed that the benefit to concentration/health etc is just to eat breakfast, any beakfast, I am much, much less uptight about breakfast.

and those litle packets were always attractive to eat

One eats a big bowl of cereal and the other just a dry tortilla wrap. I'm sure they function better at school with a decent breakfast and a drink inside them. Or maybe I'm just being old fashioned. It's very difficult to force them though.
Plus I remember giving up breakfast around 14 as I couldn't face it and I never ate it again until I was 36 and pg. I 've kept that up though and I still have cereal for breakfast.

I'm not entirely sure what dd eats for breakfast, because I leave the house, as she is getting up and DH doesn't police it, because she leaves as he's getting up!

For a long time now though, I have left it up to her. She knows the benefits of eating breakfast, she is fit and healthy and often chooses 'good' things to eat over 'bad', so it's one argument that just doesn't need to happen with a teenager imho.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm quite 'phew'! Have been feeling like a neglectful mum and tbh I gave up breakfast at about 14 too and still don't eat it now .

I have discovered smoothie 'bars' lol and they've been having them sometimes, they wouldn't drink a smoothie .

Custy - and mine eat more of the same when they get in! I'm not here then as I work but I do try and give them something decent for dinner.

I give them both a couple of pounds for the cafeteria at school and sometimes dd will take a sandwich with her too but ds is definitely worse.

Thanks again, it's nice to know they're not odd normal.

7.15 isn't really that early. Our school serves breakfast (bacon rolls anyway), doesn't yours?

DS 14 will eat cereal and toast and sometimes make himself scrambled egg or spagetti hoops on toast.

DD 12 will sometimes have cereals or yoghurt.

Tatt 7.15 is early to me and dcs! What is early to you?

Yes the cafeteria serves bacon rolls and stuff but they are expensive. DCs only have a couple of pounds to feed themselves for the rest of the day, that's why I send them off with drinks/snacks/fruit.

Mine did eat breakfast when they were at primary school and had a later start. But not now and I do worry about it, hence the original post.

DS isn't mad on b/fast either but will eat a couple of toasted waffles with maple syrup

Early to me would be 6.30. We chose to live nearer school so mine eat breakfast around 7 - 7.20 a.m. They like a slow start to the day. Breakfast is usually fruit juice and a bowl of cereal so I don't see a problem in sending yours off with cereal bars and a drink. When we're away we'll take Kelloggs Raisin bakes as the oat base means they fill you longer.

If you feel bad about it you could maybe your own flapjack at weekends and send them off with that or croissants or a roll with cheese/egg/ham.

Lots of teenagers won't eat breakfast because they are not hungry at that time.

You need to rearrange their eating and sleeping habits so that they are hungry early in the morning.

This means:

• eating an evening meal earlier, and it being a bit lighter, and, crucially, no snacking after supper
• going to bed a little earlier

This will mean they digest properly overnight, and are hungry when they wake up.

Teenagers can get into bad habits where they eat very little all day, are ravenous when they get home and eat masses between 5 pm and 8pm, and then cannot manage to digest it all before morning. So the cycle starts again.

This is a very bad habit indeed that you should do your utmost to help your teens to break.

If my DS1 is leaving the house early I give him a ham and cheese or smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel.
But I usually insist that they eat before they leave.
Not having breakfast may be a bad habit that some of us have as adults too but I think it is an important one to stop.
I eat shit when I am feeling depressed but I wouldn't hand my DD a box of chocolates when she was feeling upset.

I am not being pompous or superior. I have a 16 year old and a 13 year old and it is incredibly difficult at times to get them to eat well. But I wouldn't just accept this and let them reinforce the habit.
Try preparing bagels or rolls the night before and hand them one rather than crisps and shit

Dd has lately got out of the habit of eating breakfast, she used to have cereal and a big cup of tea, now she doesn't bother. It's not just so she can have an extra 10 mins in bed either! She just says she isn't hungry.

She does have an early start, she is up at about 6.30 and leaves the house just after 7. There is no way I could eat at that time either, so I started giving her money so she could go to breakfast club at school which opens just before 8 when she arrives at school. But she still wasn't hungry and just bought a cup of hot chocolate, and bought something at breaktime (half 10).

There is no way I could eat anything until about 10-11 myself, so understand why she doesn't want to eat. I actually agree with Maureen that it is onew of those things not worth arguing about - she eats a healthy diet, albeit a bit later than is viewed as preferable.

Anna - you have a point about eating earlier in order to be hungry in the morning. We do eat our dinner, about 7.30-8.00 every night, perhaps that's why we are not hungry in the morning. But I don't think I will be moving our dinner time to 5pm to remedy that (nobody will be at home, for a start).

OP - don't feel guilty, as long as she is not mainlining mars bars all day I shouldn't worry

I come from Farming Stock, and standard was to get up, have a cup of tea, milk the cows then come in a couple of hours later for a slap up fry up. Put said fry up on the table any earlier and none of us could have touched it.

DD16 sometimes has nothing,sometimes has an apple and orange juice, sometimes has half a bacon sarnie or half a sausage sarnie or just a sausage in her fingers. (I cook a batch and leave them in the fridge and she can zap one in the microwave. Luckily she doesn't have a source of sweeties on the way to college.

dd has porridge but she doesn't need to leave until 8:20

7:15 is early to have eaten breakfast imo unless you've been up since 6am, think I need a good 45 min before I am hungry

Do they have a break in the morning at school? Perhaps they could take a yoghurt and fruit for then.

My boys are 16, 14 & 13(nearly).They all eat breakfast. The 14 year old made porridge for all 3 today and left hell of a mess for me to clear away! They normally help themselves to toast, cereal, orange juice and milk. They don't do tea or coffee.

They can always put food away no matter what time of day! Do try to limit crisps/sweets/fizzy drinks etc. mainly for the sake of their teeth. But that is difficult as older two take money for breakfast culb and lunch, and village shops are close to school. Little brother takes a pack-up but bigger lads can't fit enough food in their bags. I'm sure the amount they eat will even off eventually but they are growing fast.

If you're eating a healthy diet then 13 is probably old enough to choose when to eat it. They'e old enough to understand 'you'll be hungry later' and take the consequences. As long as they're not mainlining mars bars (love the phrase!) it's really not a problem.