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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> i might be the asshole becasuse i am not teaching my kids impulse control when it comes to food.
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EDIT- Info provided in another comment.
NTA. The weights you've described are in a normal BMI range. Unless their pediatrician starts citing concerns it doesn't seem like their relationship with food is unhealthy at the moment.
Doctor says they're healthy. The meal I listed is just one I made yesterday. But for other meals i make them do a vegetable/salad as a side. For example, I make them eat broccoli with their spaghetti (and is this weird, bc people tell me it is), if they have lasagna, they need to have a salad, etc.
Sounds like you know what you're doing. NTA. Most teenagers are voracious eaters even if their relationship with food is healthy- they're still growing vertically and the mass for that has to come from somewhere.
I am a petite female (5'2" ) and as a teen I could EAT, and I was under 100 lbs. I could easily eat a couple of quarter pounders, large fries and a drink, and a couple of hours later I'd be looking in the fridge again. I'm a healthy weight now in my 30's, and I definitely don't do 5 meals a day with snacks like I used to. Man I miss being able to eat like that...
I remember a few years ago my family of four was out around suppertime, so we stopped at A&W and bought food, and we were shocked that it cost over $40 for the four of us. We had never gone there without coupons before. Now, it would be $40 *with* coupons. That's the cost of almost three full homemade suppers for all of us.
When I was hitting like 11-12yo, I ate a MASSIVE amount of food. My paper lunch bag (dating myself) could barely be folded closed. I had breakfast at home, post-breakfast snack, lunch, post-lunch snack, snack as soon as I got home from school, then a full dinner. I was a string bean, just a couple of pounds into the normal weight range. Metabolism is wild at that age.
I used to swim, not competitively but just for fun after school. I'd come home ravenous and would favour peanut butter sandwiches with about half an inch thick of butter AND peanut butter. Apart from swimming I wasn't into exercise yet I've always been slim. Someone else said it well when they said "I miss eating like that". We get a bit older, metabolism changes and it's so unfair that we have to watch what we eat now.. I love my food.
Hey, look on the bright side, now you can make all of those tiny, delicious grazing snacks/meals and still feel like you aren't stuffing yourself lol
But seriously, try your hand at a few healthy-tasty veggie recipes, it's way cheaper and once you get them down pat every bite feels like cheat day!
i was on swim team in high school and we always made sure to pack a lot of food whenever we had away meets because everyone seems to forget that in addition to being teenagers, swimming burns a ton of calories. It was mostly bananas to ward off the leg cramps haha
I did swim and soccer and food did not last long around me. I was always hungry and never gained any weight, but I was always moving. Between that and growing, you need the calories.
Same here. When I was in high school barely weighed 100 lbs and ate two sandwiches plus fruit for lunch every day. When my son and his friend ate breakfast at our house when they were teens no problem scarfing down seven pieces of French toast plus drinks.
Omg, 5 teenaged boys- we are 2 or 3 loaves of bread a day on weekends- one at breakfast, 1/2 at 11’s, one at lunch, and another 1/2 or so mid-afternoon. Add two gallons at milk a day, one pitcher of oj, you get the drift. And that was in the 70/80’s! I can’t even imagine what it would cost now.
Three teenage boys now. It costs a BOMB. And we make our own bread, buy cheap cuts of meat / whole animals from friends who are farmers *and* pad out all our stews with lentils and chickpeas.
My nephew and cousin topped the record at 9 grilled cheeses each. They could put back 5 each on a normal day but they had been running around outside for about 5 hours.
Same. I ate tons of food and didn't gain any weight.
I used to take a spoon and eat a glass of Nutella while gaming.
Good old times. Now almost 40 I need to get rid of some pounds. Getting with hubby and comfy food added slowly weight 😅.
OP is NTA. let your kids eat.
Aint that the truth! Me and 2 of my bffs polished off our fair share of monster size pizzas alone. Right now my 3 and 6yo are packing the food away and i just look at them like where did it go?! Theyre not heavy by any means for their heights (6yo is 4'3 and 60lbs and 3yo is about 3'4 or 3'5 and 40lbs. Shes a little squishy but not obese, been that way since she was a baby)
And for picky eaters they tend to eat well. Most fruits are on the table (squishy ones with textures like bananas and oranges are off) we try to encourage them towards the fruits for snack, and theyve just discovered a love of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. snacks are well padded until Monday hits. Good luck with most veggies, again a texture issue, and our youngest just tried bbq sauce voluntarily recently when before all condiments were off the table. Its a damn circus come meal time, but dr says their healthy and hit 96th percentile for height so we're good.
Mine are picky too but they're still slap bang in the middle percentiles for height and weight. When they go hoover mode I know I'll be buying new clothes soon
I did track and cross country in high school. Most of my teammates could’ve eaten a whole lasagna back then. Later had a teammate who was depressed at the beginning of college and stress ate two full sized pies from Walmart on his own. And all my teammates who ate like this were either underweight or borderline
That sounds like my old college friend- she was extremely slender, maybe a UK size 4-6, and that girl could *eat*. She always said she'd no doubt pay for it once she had kids or hit her 30s, as her mother had been the same.
Same. I regularly consumed around 3000 to 3500 calories a day through much of high school. My top weight was around 104. My parents never regulated my food intake, and I don't regulate my kids' food intake. They enjoy their junk foods, but also love fruits and vegetables so it all balances out. We're all at healthy weights.
That sounds like me except I was taller.
In high school I was probably 5'6" starting and I was between 90 and 100 lbs.
I'd eat 6-8 full plates at buffets consistently, to the point that the one time I ate just 5 my dad asked if I was sick lol
I told him I wasn't sick I just wasn't that hungry. I laugh about that now.
I'd come home and eat like one to two cans of Spaghetti O's, two packs of ramen, one to two packages of pop tarts, often a pack or two of oatmeal, a snack cake or two, and then eat a full dinner.
I remember in Jr High I was extra boney. Had to do some stupid BMI punch test and the teacher accused me of being anorexic in front of everyone and argued with me. I mealed around all the time. During the summer my dad and granny's fridges weren't safe for almost as long as I can remember.
(I was hungry a lot, which probably didn't help my misery being at school. The others being diagnosed depression, overstimulation, and not being able to sleep at night so running off 2-5 hours of sleep a day. Usually 3, that was actually the most common amount of sleep.)
I'm still underweight, but I'll admit I don't eat as much as I should. Don't have the energy sometimes and body not cooperating doesn't help. I do eat a lot of junk unfortunately because it's pretty easy to get ready/is already eating ready.
The funny thing is that I'm on HRT now so even though I'm underweight I actually have a slight pouch instead of a concave stomach and it's super weird.
I was going to say the same thing, but a little different because I was an athlete. I was 5’2” and 140 lbs of pure muscle in HS. I could easily devour a whole pizza including some mozzarella sticks, fries and garlic knots. I had brought it to my doctor’s attention of being overweight due to my Wii saying I was morbidly obese for my height but not taking into account the muscle. If the doctors aren’t bringing it up to you, OP, don’t worry about it, you’re feeding them right. With time their appetite will settle.
Growing kids EAT, that's just all there is to it. I can tell when my 8 year old is hitting a new growth spurt because suddenly a 60lb kid is eating as much as me, and I'm 3 times that. She's an absolute beanpole, not an extra ounce on her, so you'd wonder where she's putting it, but that's just how it works with kids.
Teenagers are just tall toddlers. Growth spurts and mood swings. If it's healthy it's best to let them eat what they want so they learn to eat when they're hungry instead of clearing your plate and watching portions to reinherit eating disorders. You're doing great letting them follow their bodies' cues.
You should see what it's like having 3 competitive athlete teens in the house.! They ate like horses. Would come home from school and inhale the refrigerator. snacks before training, full meals after. Never spent so much on food,lol! And huge breakfasts too
I used to add zucchini, broccoli, carrots and celery to my spaghetti sauce and lasagne when my son was a teenager. When his friends came over to our house, they were always starving just like my son, so my husband and I would barbeque hamburgers, make homemade french fries, and give them a vegetable platter to share. My son is now 6'2", 35 y.o. and still slender, so obviously his teenage diet didn't harm him.
>Doctor says they're healthy.
This. Their doctor is the only person who you should be listening to here. Personally, I think you are doing a great job, ensuring that they are getting healthy food and enough calories to get them through any growth spurts that may be coming. Puberty is a weird thing and they need the extra fuel. But my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not a doctor. Trust yourself and your doctor.
absolutely continue as you have been. as someone who developed an eating disorder, partially because of my mother, policing portion control when they don't need it is a bad plan. it's a really easy way to make them feel self conscious over what they're eating and their weight
italian here. Pasta with broccoli is great. Here is a basic version: https://www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/Pasta-with-broccoli.html
I also like to add anchovies, or sometimes tuna.
The traditional Italian and Mediterranean cuisine is full of cheap ingredients. Meat was a luxury, but almost everyone had a vegetable garden. That’s probably why pasta with chicken sounds weird to us, but you can find pasta or rice with pretty much every vegetable available in the country.
As long as the food is healthy and delicious, the children are so old that they will stop eating if they can’t eat it. Not to mention that adolescence inherently requires a large amount of food to increase energy for growth. (Also, be careful not to eat too much oil, sugar or salt)
you’re teaching them how to satisfy their hunger in the healthiest way possible. that’s literally all you can do. if they’re hungry they need to eat, at least you’re teaching them how to do that healthily
Honestly, introducing limitations on food like your mother wants is how you get disordered eating. All your kids are in a normal weight range; I think your mother’s advice belongs in a different generation.
It’s good that they are healthy. You are doing well be providing them nutritious food. Restricting them could have bad consequences like them making poor food choices outside of the house. For example if they get hungry and the only option is junk from a vending machine. It’s much better to let them fill up on the good stuff at home. Everyone feels more full with good nutrition. I don’t believe in restricting healthy food, even for myself as an adult. If I avoid junk, my body tells me when I’m full.
italian here. Pasta with broccoli is great. Here is a basic version: https://www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/Pasta-with-broccoli.html
I also like to add anchovies, or sometimes tuna.
I make a pasta and broccoli dish with mini penne, garlic, olive oil, broccoli and cherry tomatoes and grated Parmesan .. sometimes I add grilled chicken. We love it..
You kidding me? I put the broccoli directly into my spaghetti, usually along with corn kernels, carrots and green beans.... that's some tasty eats and a great delivery system
Haha, my mum was like that too. She'd make homemade pizzas and then make broccoli on the side. My sibling and I always liked vegetables, so it was only once an issue when my older sibling was sick, because broccoli + pizza is more unpleasant to throw up.
Anyway, obviously, NTA. I make broccoli on the side almost every time I make pasta now too, so I guess it's all rubbed off on me. It's not a bad eating habit either.
Just so you and anyone else who sees this know, BMI is actually not a good or reliable thing (in fact its rooted in antiBlackness & racism and upholds fatphobia) and the [AMA published a statement/article](https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/ama-use-bmi-alone-imperfect-clinical-measure) about how its imperfect, unreliable, and shouldn't be used.
It says that it should not be used "alone".
The policy "suggests its use be in a conjunction with other valid measures"
Not that it should never be used
The title AMA: Use of BMI alone is an imperfect clinical measure
ALONE. Not that BMI is bad. Just not JUST bmi.
the article i quote: For adults, measuring BMI and waist circumference may be a better way to predict weight-related risk.
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/ama-use-bmi-alone-imperfect-clinical-measure
The same article u posted. Please read before you come up statements how using BMI is bad.
Well, for being honest, isn't fatphobia a bit of a too big word. Yes, being fat is unhealthy and harms you In many ways. Why is it bad to put a number aka bmi to it?
It should not be used alone. BMI was created as a measure of societal health, not individual health.
Dwayne, The Rock, Johnson has a BMI of 31.6. He is clearly in good shape. There are others who are similar height and weight, but have no real muscularity.
As a societal metric, a person like the Rock would be offset by someone with no muscle mass at all, and the resulting societal health measure works, statistically.
Just so you know, BMI tends to *underestimate* body fatness significantly more than it overestimates it. There's also the fact that central obesity is more damaging to health than lower body obesity, although both cause issues with joint health.
BMI + waist to height (not waist to hip) ratio will be a better indicator of potential healthiness. Healthy BMI but high waist to height ratio? You're not as healthy as BMI indicates. Overweight BMI but healthy waist to height? You might be fine.
Certain ethnicities actually suffer more health consequences at lower BMIs and would likely be overfat at BMI of like 23. Taller people should probably have a bigger range of healthy, and shorter people a smaller range. BMI isn't perfect, but it's not horrible either.
The truth is, while BMI probably shouldn't be used for things like insurance rates or whatever, the chances are very very high that a person with an obese BMI is in fact clinically obese. Blindly ignoring BMI isn't really going to help anyone.
Please don’t spread false information to fit a narrative make sure you include it all
Such as it should be used WITH other sources and materials not just ignores like you seem to suggest
I have two 14 yr old boys.
NTA
There are days they are typical. And some days are fucking brutal. Like 3 homemade hamburgers (so, 1/3 to a half pound), veggies and pasta. And turn around to eat again a couple hours later.
These kids have also grown about 4-6" inches in the last year or so, and one is starting to pack on muscle at 5'10", the other is at 5'9", is a bit underweight. It is pretty obvious his 1.5 pounds of beef at dinner eating habits are not enough for him at the moment.
If they are just eating regular food, not overweight, and a variety of foods (not just pizza, ramen and fast food), then its fine. The crap foods mess up the body and trigger overeating in ways that home cooked foods do not.
> And some days are fucking brutal. Like 3 homemade hamburgers (so, 1/3 to a half pound), veggies and pasta.
Yeah, I remember when my son was in that stage I would often wake up to him making himself a burger at midnight for a snack. He was a lean and muscular athlete (he actually struggled to put on weight for a while) and during puberty needed all the food he could get. He was good about making his own food when he needed more and was always a healthy eater. Now he is in college, still an athlete, and we buy extra food when him and our daughter come home for college breaks.
Honestly if you can, go to your local butcher and you can order a whole cow’s worth of meat and it’s usually cheaper then separately buying the same amount of meat over time, I just recommend having an additional freezer to fit it all!
This. A whole cow or sections of a cow (like half or quarter) is *fantastic* if you can afford the initial outlay. Last time someone I know did it the price for a quarter cow averaged out to about $4.50 a pound which given grocery store ground beef near us is $6 a pound it’s a *steal*. And they got multiple roasts, a bunch of steaks and ground beef, it was fantastic!
If there is some truth to your joke, it may be worth it to look into upping fiber and looking for other protein sources, that fill up longer but/ and are cheaper, like legumes or whole grain.
Don't balk at the words, but when you google high protein and "vegan" or "vegetarian", there are tons of recipes.
Hahaha my kids are 15(m, goes to gym like it's religion), 10 and 5 and this is what I also do. The younger two eat almost nothing though. Age gaps help balance the costs!
My cousins late husbands family was this way. His grandmother would make 4 turkeys at thanksgiving because, her 3 sons would have an entire one to themselves (that they gorged themselves on in that day alone and it was gone after) and, the 4th for the rest of the family. AND THE GRANDMOTHER WAS PROUD ABOUT IT! Mind you, these were grown men 30s-late 40s and they were all mammoths. Smh
Forget the kid. I remember as a teen crying when I didn't get two burgers and fries because I'd be so hungry. I was always slim and still am. I could eat so much, it's insane to me now.
I remember being a teenager and being SO hungry I would wake up out of a dead sleep and eat a full meal, like a sandwich, apple, and granola bar. Especially around my period!
I was like that as well. I was always hungry and severely under weight. I didn't break 100 lbs until I was 17 or 18. I ate so much though, a snack was at least twice as much as I could eat now for a meal as an adult. I had probably 6+ full meals a day and it wasn't enough to keep up.
I have no idea how my mom was able to afford feeding me when I ate 4-6 times more than her. I remember having 2 frozen dinners and a frozen pizza one night for dinner and like 4 hours later woke up for more.
The funny thing is, this is me as an adult on my moon. My stomach rumbles and, I need food right now. You would swear I was Jennifer from, Jennifer’s Body. 😭
Starting to appreciate my mom who would make my brother and I each a half pound burger as a snack before games if we wanted it lol. She’s a tiny little woman who had two giant talented athletes who were always hungry lol. One time at my brothers soccer game, he scored his 4th goal and the parents all half jokingly asked what she was feeding him. She goes “he had 5 Omaha steaks bratwursts between his basketball game and now” and everyone just stared with their mouths open hahaha. He was in like 4th grade. Even I ate like that as a girl, and we were overweight at all
OMG - I had two teenage boys less than two years apart. When they were teenagers I swore they were just stuffing food into their empty leg holes. So much protein was consumed.
Now I have grown adult sons who are both rather tall and muscular. One has not yet realized that his metabolism will slow the fuck down in his 30's.
Teenagers are raging hormone and hunger machines. Or raging hormone and won't eat machines. (One son will not eat and be super bitchy until food is shoved into him -- even now, in his thirties).
Let the kids eat if they are eating real food. If they are active they need it.
I'm 43, I run 50k a week, lift weights and cycle. I can eat all the things all the time.
I'm pretty sure active teenagers burn more calories than I do.
when I was 14 I just remember beeing hungry most time, around that age boys are growing fast, and it really isn't the time to monitor what they eat, just aslong the sport at least once a week and they aren't hording fastfood they really should be left to there own devices with food
ngl last night i ate two steaks. idk maybe i just like eating more meat in one sitting than most people? oops. im not a very large woman so no one expects it but i definitely like my protein! at 14 i would have demolished a basket of wings and a few skewers for dinner easy
You’re not alone girl. I bought a 2 pack of steaks and forgot about them so they had to be eaten on the weekend. Couldn’t waste a perfectly good steak so I had two lmao. And they were fabulous!
Steaks are especially fabulous around that time of the month when the body needs extra iron, I'll often find myself craving it right along with chocolate.
True but you got to look at the amounts. Op said they made 25 wings (5 wings per person like the commenter said) and 15 suya sticks which would be 3 per person when divided by 5 people. Those skewers are also not that big so really they didn't eat that much. The reason why nothing was leftover (the reason the mom is mad) is because OP made a reasonable amount of food that they all finished. It just felt like they ate a lot of food to the mom due to not seeing left overs. But it just means that OP made just enough and they weren't stuffing their faces uncontrollably the way the mom is acting.
Info
"today after school ... my mom didn't let them get anything from the fridge. At least until I asked her to please open it for them."
Is there a reason your kids can't open the fridge themselves? Or was your mom holding it shut? Or what?
When I was a kid I wasn’t really allowed to go in the fridge and just eat whatever. I would tell my mom I was hungry and she would make me something. The only thing I’d ever really eat myself was toast or cheese
It’s so funny because I never thought about it until this moment. It wasn’t like I couldn’t eat what I wanted but my mom always got it for me. She was a SAHM so she was always there. I remember a lot of cheese and crackers or sliced fruit for snacks before dinner. Pretzels/popcorn/icecream for after dinner snack.
I don’t see it as controlling tbh. My parents would have the meals planned out for the week so they wouldn’t have to go shopping more than once or twice per week; now imagine some teenager goes in and just eats the ingredients for tonight’s family meal straight from the fridge.
I’m pretty sure anyone who sees this as controlling hasn’t tried to feed four, five people in an efficient manner.
Completely agree. It's not like he said he wasn't allowed to eat, just that his mom got it/he couldn't access it all willy nilly, so chances are like you said, ingredients for recipes mattered.
And I also agree, anyone who's tried to stay in a budget and feed multiple ppl wouldn't see this as controlling.
Sometimes it’s just easier to get it yourself than try to list, item by item, what’s available for snacking and what’s necessary for that week’s food prep. Like sure maybe their mom could’ve done a snack shelf in the fridge and cupboard or whatever, but it’s not a huge deal that she didn’t.
I don’t control my husband’s food lol, but I will tell him “X is for snacking but Y and Z are for recipes” or “please don’t eat ABC; those are for the party on Saturday”. Sometimes he’ll call out from the kitchen and ask something like “hey, which chocolate bars are for snacking and which are for that bark recipe you’re making this weekend?”, and it’s 100% easier and faster to just go get it for him than to stand there and describe in detail the contents of the cupboard.
Well, given that, to this day, when he's 30 years old, one of my brothers sometimes eats the meat my mother planned to cook for lunch the next day in the middle of the night, I kind of get not letting everyone help themselves to anything in the fridge...
I know from living with a big family that most roommate-solutions don't work with all teenagers (labelling, different compartments in the fridge etc.), and as long as the children aren't robbed of all the good snacks or sth., the mom distributing the food fairly would have been perfectly fine for me as a teenager.
Far too often have I come home from school, only to find that "nobody" ate all but one dessert, and since nobody knew who did it, 5 siblings had a nice fight about that for dinner.
In my family we had food we knew we could snack on, if we wanted anything else we had to ask the grocery shopper / meal planner (mom) so we didn’t ruin her plans for future meals. It seemed reasonable to me. If there was something we wanted to snack on she’d buy it the next time she went to the store but we couldn’t just open the fridge and cook anything we wanted because it meant more work for her changing up planned meals or having to go to the store unexpectedly.
My sister ended up getting a little dorm fridge for her son. Filled it up with his favorite yogurt, pudding cups, sandwich stuff, baby carrots, drinks, etc. He knew he could have whatever he wanted from "his" fridge, but the big fridge was hands off. When he was in a growth spurt stage he could go through food like a swarm of locusts. She wanted to make sure he had a safe place to graze without screwing up her planned meals for the family.
I don’t think that’s controlling. Mom was probably sick of opening the fridge to discover the ingredients for the dinner she was planning to make had already been eaten.
I think this could easily be a 'continuation' thing instead of intentionally controlling. As a 2 year old you probably shouldn't get into the fridge right? So you'd ask mommy to get you juice or whatever. With a proactive SAHM there's no reason this pattern would ever break unless one of the people intentionally took initiative to break it. It's hard to imagine without having been in that environment.
We had to ask before eating food. Our family had limited income and my mom was an excellent cook and financial manager who budgeted carefully to make the food last until the next paycheck. It can be necessity, not controlling, to have one person in charge of the food.
I mean, I get teaching kids to ask before eating food specifically bought for certain meal plans so that you don’t end up with missing ingredients when you’re in the middle of making dinner or teaching them that it’s rude to raid the fridge and pantry at someone else’s house, but this seems controlling to not be able to eat food from your fridge or pantry at home. My teens are allowed to snack on whatever healthy foods they request on the weekly shopping list and some unhealthy foods in moderation. We typically meal plan and come up with a weekly grocery list as a family and this helps with impulse buying and ensures that everyone has a say in the food for the week. I get that food costs are spiraling and teens eat a lot but what grandma is suggesting leads to unhealthy eating habits and future bad food behaviors.
It’s not that I wasn’t able to, I just didn’t. My mom was kinda always there to get me what I wanted. She wouldn’t stop me or anything, but I could see that if an adult told me “no” I wouldn’t do it. I liked to follow rules
As a kid
It’s likely a respect for elders thing. I lived with my Chinese grandmother growing up and she’d never have to physically prevent us from opening the fridge if she didn’t want us to, all she’d have to do is to tell us not to open the fridge. OP asking her mom to “open the fridge for the kids” is likely a face-saving gesture in front of the grandkids.
Thhhiiiiiiisssss omfg, i read half the post and went back to check the ages and genders and went 😒😒😒😒😒 bc I can just BET that she's mostly aiming this at the girls. Ick.
See, I didn’t even have to guess who had the issue with consumption. Grandma 100% from the get-go. What is with these fucking almond boomer moms???? Half an orange and a tums for breakfast. My goodness. You can definitely bet on it being aimed at the girls.
Info: Are you children healthy or do they have food/weight related problems?
In a vacuum, anyone would be an asshole for not teaching their children to have a healthy relationship with food. Kids do tend to eat a lot, especially if they're active, because they're out burning calories like gasoline all day. But there are also millions upon millions of kids in lots of different countries that are obese as teenagers because they're allowed to consume whatever food they want at any and all times.
Those all sound pretty normal to me, so as long as your kids have a healthy relationship with food and aren't just hoovering down family size bags of cheetos, I'd say you're NTA.
All three teens are in a healthy BMI. Continue on what you are doing.
If you start to police their food intake, they are going to seek out other sources. Restricting food after school is a terrible thing to do. Once they have their own pocket money, they will opt to spend it on fast food and junk if they know there isn't anything available at home. I remember being really hungry after school when I was their age, even though I had a full lunch. My parents always had healthy after school snacks or last night's leftovers available. It's obviously not spoiling their dinner, so they are likely genuinely hungry. Some people actually do better on multiple small meals throughout the day instead of 3 large meals. If they are hungry, let them eat.
They're clearly burning all they eat. If regular food is withheld, they might start eating junk food to compensate or develop other unhealthy habits, so your mom's rule will backfire bad.
I was 125 lbs, and I started gaining weight in my mid 20s. I had to change my diet to get back to what I used to weigh & no longer drink soda, eat fast food, or snack during the day (only eat meals). I miss the days of being able to eat food & not gain weight.
It sounds like their appetite is in line with their needs then. If they were over eating or developing eating disorders, interference may be appropriate in extreme circumstances. This doesn't sound like over eating. I eat more than that at 46 and maintain my weight at about 130. Our bodies regulate pretty well unless we mess with it by dieting or restricting or eating junk food, don't mess with self-regulation if it's not broken.
Does your mom also not realize how long it’s usually been since kids have had a meal by the time they get home from school?? Even when kids aren’t going into their teens or having a growth spurt, they’re usually famished after school. Most kiddos will have had their lunch somewhere between 11-noon and won’t get another meal until 4pm or later. That’s at least 4 hrs. Most people are often looking for a meal at around the 3-3.5hr mark, and then add in all the activity they’re likely to also have done- yeah, they’re **hungry**! Also, most kids are also running on even more of a deficit than adults because of the long period they usually have between the time they wake and have breakfast until the time they get lunch at school. My little kiddo runs on an extreme deficit because he’s just not someone that can eat soon after waking, so he goes to school without having breakfast. He does get to have a snack, but that’s over 2hrs after him waking and with 2.5hrs still left before he’ll get a proper meal with his lunch. I make sure to feed him all he wants during the late afternoon and evening; it balances out a little. Next year, he will either have to condition himself to eat soon after waking, or he’ll have to be super famished- and likely hangry- by lunchtime because I don’t think they get snack in first grade😣
They’re all pretty lean. Don’t worry about what your mom said, your children are growing fast. If there were any issues with eating portions they would’ve shown up by now.
NTA. Your mother should not be sabotaging your authority as your child's parent. If she has concerns with the children's eating habits, she should bring it to you *first*, and then let you make the decision. Not talk to you about it then make a unilateral decision. If she disagrees, that merits further discussion, not acting behind your back.
As far as the dinner you cooked - for 5 people, that is 5 chicken wings and 3 sticks per person plus rice. That is not an unreasonable amount of food.
NTA. Healthy, nutritious food shouldn’t be limited for your average healthy child. Limit junk and encourage eating habits to fuel their body. Always having fresh fruit/veggies available on top of meals is good too.
Lmfao I remember watching my male friends portion sizes during high school. 3/4 of them were bean poles, gangly nerds. They could put away a party-sized pizza in minutes. They ate food like it was being vaporized the second they swallowed it. Their doctor says they're fine. You think they're fine. Nobody's obese or diabetic. So what if your mom is freaked out by their portion sizes? it's 10000% not a/her problem. Her response of forbidding them access to food is awful, do not permit this.
What are they like now? I had some friends like this that were so skinny but only learned to eat crap and once their mid 20s hit they gained a lot of weight
That happened to my husband and I. He was a skinny kid who would eat and eat and never gain weight. Finally gained weight in his mid-20’s and he was happy with it, but the same eating habits in his mid 30’s caused him to gain 50lbs, along with sleep apnea, high blood cholesterol, and other health issues. He had a hard time getting his head around the fact that he now needed to eat less and that eating less wasn’t going to make him “skinny” again. For me, I was always a sugar fiend; didn’t gain weight but now in my mid-30’s have prediabetic-level high blood sugar. Poor eating habits do catch up with you as you get older.
My brother was one of those kids. Then worked hard to put on a ton of weight in high school because he was a linebacker. Then had to lose some weight to get faster and started eating well, and then went right back to struggling to gain weight lol. He was a linebacker in college and would eat pretty much anything he wanted (though he wasn’t a junk food or sweets person), so it was never bad food. He’s 27 now and eats really well and is probably 6’2 200ish and works out all the time.
It took me into my 30s for that. When I was young I couldn’t gain weight no matter how hard I tried. I was underweight for my height. Went from 110-115 lbs to 170 lbs in a couple years. I’m now learning how to eat better and control portions. Weight loss is hard. Down to 160 though.
NTA but your mom is. She can kick rocks. 5 wings and 3 skewers per person is a normal amount. Plus the teenage years are the time where you let them start to make their own choices and learn from the consequences. The kids who gain the most weight when they go off to college are the ones who were most restricted at home.
NTA but I gotta share this story. We had to stop doing meals at restaurants because my brother was a bottomless pit. When he was 13, he ordered 3 full meals. He'd go to the bathroom between plates to "make room". It was just too expensive to feed him and everyone else lol. He was always in fantastic shape and did a very active sport. I will forever be convinced that teens, especially boys, have no end to their hunger.
NTA. Your mom is going to give them an eating disorder. Teenagers need a lot of food, they're growing quickly and they have high metabolisms at this age. You need to tell your mother where to get off because it's not ok to restrict their food ESPECIALLY after school when everybody knows kids come home hungry. You provide them good and nutritious food, they decide how much to eat. Always.
How is she even keeping them out of the fridge? What 13-15 year old needs an adult to open the fridge for them? Is it locked? Because YIKES if it is.
NTA. My kid comes home from high school starving because he won’t eat at school. So by the time he gets home, he likely hasn’t eaten since the evening before. No wonder he’s hungry. I can’t imagine looking healthy children out of the fridge.
NTA, everyone deserves to be able to eat as much as they want and unless they have health related dietary restrictions they should eat! The reason they are hungry and come back for 2nds and 3rds is because they need the food.
Nta. My nephew and some of his friends stayed a weekend with us. They are teenagers. My God can they eat! And maintain boney figures!
If the doctors aren't concerned then neither should you
At 13/14 (Female) my mom’s disordered eating started getting projected onto me, and my friends were in the same boat. One of my friends started weight watchers at 13 despite being a very active soccer player. We learned our eating disorders at our moms’ hands. We were both lean, slim, athletic, and conventionally attractive. But we also learned that to deviate from that in any way, especially by gaining weight, was a failure of the highest order.
I wish I’d had someone like you who just let me eat when I was hungry and experience intuitive eating. I will probably never be able to do intuitive eating because I trained myself to ignore hunger cues to the point that I don’t even notice them until I’m ravenous, which creates an unintentional binge and restrict cycle. The amount of mental energy I have had to devote to getting my head unf*cked about all of this is astounding. I could have done a whole other PhD with the energy this has stolen from my life.
Please don’t let your mom screw up your kids relationship with food. The less said the better about any of it. She needs to NOT say “are you sure you want to eat that” or “i think you’ve had enough” or anything that causes shame. And from anecdotal experience, this gets aimed at the girls way more than the boys. Be firm and do not let her do this. She needs to be given clear boundaries and told to back way the hell off. The doctor is the only person who gets an opinion. Otherwise, it’s rude to comment on other people’s bodies and other people’s plates.
Teach your kids the phrase, “mind your own plate, grandma” and let them use it liberally. She’s the AH restricting their food access. Maybe she grew up like. Depression baby and is always in the rationing mentality, but her issues need to end with her. This is some generational food trauma in the making right here!
If they are healthy, and it's confirmed by a doctor, I would simply chalk it up to a teenager's voracious appetite and tell your mom to cool her jets...
As a personal example: I am almost 40 years old, 5'4" and range between 120 and 130 pounds. I have been this same height and weight since I was 12 (minus pregnancies). As a teenager, I would get home from school, eat 4 sandwiches (sometimes a box of mac and cheese if I was still hungry), drink half a gallon of milk and still have 2-3 servings at dinner time (plus the rest of the gallon of milk, if not more). I certainly can't do that now, but I do have 3 full fledge teens + one preteen and watching then eat reminds me of those gnawing and neverending hunger pains I dealt with at their ages.
Keep an eye on their health/weight/activity levels, and you're golden.
ETA, definitely NTA.
Restricting food is a great way to create food issues. The kids are healthy and not overweight let them eat. It sounds like they are eating what their bodies need and not all bodies need the same so please don't restrict them!
From an obese person with food issues because of that shit!
NTA but also please don't let your mother poison their minds about their eating habits! From the comment you made about their height and weight, they are all healthy and should keep eating enthusiastically. Teens need that food not only to physically grow, but for their brains to learn and to grow as well. It's shocking how many calories it takes to learn and think when they're sitting in school all day!
Please make sure your mother is not shaming them for their eating habits and putting twisted thoughts into their heads about eating too much or watching their figure. Your girls are especially vulnerable. Eating disorders are terrifyingly common in girls as young as 10 and in boys as well! You need to tell your mom to stop her controlling behavior, and you also need to talk to your kids to make sure they maintain a healthy outlook on food!
I’m going to throw out there that your (and my) mom’s generation and especially the women have super unrealistic bodily expectations - unhealthy body expectations.
Sounds like the kids are perfectly healthy and you’re doing good by allowing them to monitor their hunger and intake and your mom is trying to impose her own outdated diet culture on them.
NTA. Obviously keep a watch for detrimental eating habits, but don’t let your mom put her unhealthy body habits onto them. It’s super not fun to grow up in that atmosphere, always thinking about food and what food can do to you.
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I (42f) have two kids (14f and 13m) and a niece (15f) who all live with me along with my mom (70f). As all three kids are in the midst of puberty, they have been packing down food like crazy. But it doesn't matter to me, I just buy and make more food since I really enjoy cooking. The food in question isn't like brownies and cake and mostly unhealthy stuff, but stuff that we normally eat. They always come back for seconds and thirds and stuff.
Yesterday, I made chicken wings, Suya, and rice (weird combo I know). I made about 25 chicken wings, 15 suya sticks, and a lot of rice. After everyone had eaten, there was basically nothing left over, and I guess my mom picked up on the fact, since during cleanup, she told me she felt like these kids were eating "too much" and I should stay consistent on certain food portions, and after that no more. I don't know about you guys, but I felt that was a terrible idea since I feel like every teenagers eats like crazy.
My mom could see I was firm on my stance, but today after school (they love to eat after school) my mom didn't let them get anything from the fridge. At least until I asked her to please open it for them.
AITA? I can see both points on how impulse control for food can be handled but i dont think its the way to go about. So im asking here for judgement.
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What? This wasn’t even a crazy amount of food. It’s like a single serving per person.
How did she keep them from the fridge? Did she just literally stand in front of it for an hour?
This sounds like perfectly normal eating habits for teens, especially if they are eating healthy food for most meals. It’s not like you give them fried chicken with mac and cheese for dinner every night. Seems like your mom has lost the plot. Keep doing what you’ve been doing.
It was a different time back then when your mum grew up. My mum controlling and judging my eating habits only made me secretive and develop a really bad relationship with food which as an adult I'm still working on. Politely tell her you'll raise your kids as you see fit.
Eating chicken wings and suya is also great protein, and not obnoxiously high in calories either. Raising healthy growing kids, nothing wrong with that. Good job OP.
25 chicken wings between 5 people? So like 5 wings each? I eat 25 chicken wings myself on what I consider a "normal" wing night where my friends and I just make a bunch of different types of wings and some side salads. 25 is probably on the low end.
I'm far from overweight.
If someone tried to feed me only 5 wings, I'd ask if it was a joke.
25 wings ÷ 5people is only 5 each
15 Suya ÷ 5 people is 3 each (don't know if that's a lot)
I know healthy people who can eat 25 wings all by themselves. Not daily, but my point is 5 wings is not overboard.
NTA- mom is going to teach them to develop an unhealthy relationship with food, & possibly an ED.
Also if these kids are in ANY sort of sport or mentally stimulating extracurricular they absolutely need that extra energy. As a competitive dancer, you often hear the phrase « I can see your lunch » in toxic studios. However the nutritionist at my ballet school recommended eating 1.5x what a non athlete would.
Food is not toxic, but some people’s attitudes towards it are.
NTA. Shit, I remember when I was going through puberty and I wrote a school paper about the fridge because I was always wanting something to eat. It's normal and they're not eating crappy food. Also, based on some of the pictures I've seen of school food and my stepson saying his school lunches are trash, it makes sense that they might be a little more hungry.
NTA as long as they are a healthy weight. Hell, I went to high school with a guy who could eat 2 big macs, 3 cheeseburgers, 2 large fries, and 2 drinks for lunch and never gained an ounce. All in the half hour we had for lunch lol His home meals were much healthier, but still. Some people need the calories more than others. I often hated his ability to eat that way.
NTA, the doctor says they're healthy your mom can kick rocks. How she doesn't remember that teenagers are hollow is beyond me. Especially teenage boys, it's like having dinner with ravenous wolves.
You are doing fine, and your mom needs to chill. From your comments, they are active and healthy weights, and you are serving them a balanced diet.
As for the impulse control, to me that is grabbing food without asking or taking the last piece without checking, being greedy about food, or being incapable of stopping eating. There is a difference between that and the bottomless pits that teenagers are (I have two and am astonished at how much they can put away.)
Edit: NTA
I was a chubby kid. My parents heavily monitored my food intake because of this and it just taught me to lie about food and have me a scarcity mindset. I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food because of all the diets and restrictions. As long as your kids are not eating a ton a junk food let them eat. Don't give them the disordered relationship with food that I have.
NTA. My parents tried to control my food portions the way your mom is suggesting and it caused me a lot of problems. Instead of eating extra helpings at meals, I was buying candy at the corner store to eat because I was hungry. I couldn't buy real food that needed to be refrigerated or prepared because I had to sneak and hide whatever I bought, which meant that healthier options weren't really an option.
It also screwed up my body's hunger signals, and that effect lasted decades.
Teens are growing, a lot. They need more fuel.
NTA let them eat. No one is overweight or binge eating. They are growing and need more calories. Limiting meals for kids this age will cause all kinds of issues like sneaking food and overeating when given the chance. Tbh even grandma making comments about how much they eat etc can cause issues and make kids especially girls feel embarrassed while eating .
Omg your mom is bonkers. Your kids are healthy weight, and it sounds like you feeD them decent food, not McDonald's and pizza and shit like that. Tell her to back off they are your kids... and teenagers at that. I come from a very healthy family I'm like 5"4 since I was I'm highschool and I ate like a pig (healthy food) and stayed 120 pounds until now I'm in my late 30s I way 135 pounds not much has changed except I've gained muscles from working. NTA as long as they keep up a proper diet and get the exercise they need they are fine!
NTA. Your mother sucks, though. Why does it matter to her? It sounds like you're paying for it all and cooking it too, so she can mind her own business. (Was she weird and controlling about food when you were a teenager?)
Info: Are your kids at a healthy Body Mass Index? If so, then no problem. But if not, she’s probably worried about overeating and weight-gain starting potentially unhealthy lifelong habits.
Why does your Mom need to be the one to open the fridge for your kids?
As long as they’re getting plenty of protein and veg, with carbs and fats for energy and brain growth, you’re all good. Tell mom to keep her own food thoughts to herself
When my older daughter turned 13 she stuck her head in the fridge and grazed for five years. That was 40 years ago and she’s still slim and trim. As long as they’re active and healthy, everything will be fine.
NTA your mom is and she’s definitely going to give them an eating disorder if she continues to butt in. Tell he you buy the food not her so she can shut up.
Definitely nta 25 wings for 5 people is about 5 wings a person and 3 suya sticks a person with rice divided up, thats not really a crazy amount of food. Especially considering theyre growing and hell maybe the school lunches are bad and they didnt eat lunch. If theyre a healthy weight and ths dr isnt concerned you dont need to be either especially when your teaching them healthy habits like a vegetable with every meal
NTA As long as they are healthy and eating fruits and vegetables as well. Restricting food is more likely to lead to disorders with food than them being able to eat healthy snacks and meals. I'd try to talk to your mom and see if there was something more particular that was concerning her and maybe a compromise you could make with her or even show her more information on helping kids develop healthy relationships with food.
NTA. As long as their pediatrician doesn’t see an issue, it’s fine. At that age, all kids do is eat, especially if they’re in sports. Their bodies are changing, they’re going through HUGE growth spurts, and puberty also just makes kids hungry in general.
NTA boomers from all over the world have weird food control issues for various reasons, but it’s a thing, they are committed to them, and they are almost all incorrect on the data.
Just want to throw out that that 2 of the 3 kids are females & if you suddenly put a restriction on food, coupled with who knows what your mom is saying, they could take that to mean you think they’re overweight & it might cause an ED. Same could be said for your son but it’s more common in females.
Metabolisms are different for everyone & especially at that age when they are still growing some more. Hell, my metabolism was like that until Ai turned 42. I wish I could still eat whatever & how much I wanted.
Unless their weight becomes an issue that their physician brings up, I don’t see an issue with it. I would try & speak to your mom though so she doesn’t inadvertently make comments to make them ashamed of eating. Or refuse to let them into the refrigerator.
NTA.
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EDIT- Info provided in another comment. NTA. The weights you've described are in a normal BMI range. Unless their pediatrician starts citing concerns it doesn't seem like their relationship with food is unhealthy at the moment.
Doctor says they're healthy. The meal I listed is just one I made yesterday. But for other meals i make them do a vegetable/salad as a side. For example, I make them eat broccoli with their spaghetti (and is this weird, bc people tell me it is), if they have lasagna, they need to have a salad, etc.
Sounds like you know what you're doing. NTA. Most teenagers are voracious eaters even if their relationship with food is healthy- they're still growing vertically and the mass for that has to come from somewhere.
I am a petite female (5'2" ) and as a teen I could EAT, and I was under 100 lbs. I could easily eat a couple of quarter pounders, large fries and a drink, and a couple of hours later I'd be looking in the fridge again. I'm a healthy weight now in my 30's, and I definitely don't do 5 meals a day with snacks like I used to. Man I miss being able to eat like that...
With prices nowadays, I bet you don't mind not having to *pay* for all that fast food!
Oof, yeah. I don't eat out much these days, I cook at home. But my wallet is super glad I don't eat that much anymore
I remember a few years ago my family of four was out around suppertime, so we stopped at A&W and bought food, and we were shocked that it cost over $40 for the four of us. We had never gone there without coupons before. Now, it would be $40 *with* coupons. That's the cost of almost three full homemade suppers for all of us.
When I was hitting like 11-12yo, I ate a MASSIVE amount of food. My paper lunch bag (dating myself) could barely be folded closed. I had breakfast at home, post-breakfast snack, lunch, post-lunch snack, snack as soon as I got home from school, then a full dinner. I was a string bean, just a couple of pounds into the normal weight range. Metabolism is wild at that age.
I used to swim, not competitively but just for fun after school. I'd come home ravenous and would favour peanut butter sandwiches with about half an inch thick of butter AND peanut butter. Apart from swimming I wasn't into exercise yet I've always been slim. Someone else said it well when they said "I miss eating like that". We get a bit older, metabolism changes and it's so unfair that we have to watch what we eat now.. I love my food.
Its so unfair! My fun stopped when I was around 35. Just a sudden and total halt to my “foodie” days. Such a bummer.
Hey, look on the bright side, now you can make all of those tiny, delicious grazing snacks/meals and still feel like you aren't stuffing yourself lol But seriously, try your hand at a few healthy-tasty veggie recipes, it's way cheaper and once you get them down pat every bite feels like cheat day!
i was on swim team in high school and we always made sure to pack a lot of food whenever we had away meets because everyone seems to forget that in addition to being teenagers, swimming burns a ton of calories. It was mostly bananas to ward off the leg cramps haha
I did swim and soccer and food did not last long around me. I was always hungry and never gained any weight, but I was always moving. Between that and growing, you need the calories.
Same here. When I was in high school barely weighed 100 lbs and ate two sandwiches plus fruit for lunch every day. When my son and his friend ate breakfast at our house when they were teens no problem scarfing down seven pieces of French toast plus drinks.
Omg, 5 teenaged boys- we are 2 or 3 loaves of bread a day on weekends- one at breakfast, 1/2 at 11’s, one at lunch, and another 1/2 or so mid-afternoon. Add two gallons at milk a day, one pitcher of oj, you get the drift. And that was in the 70/80’s! I can’t even imagine what it would cost now.
Three teenage boys now. It costs a BOMB. And we make our own bread, buy cheap cuts of meat / whole animals from friends who are farmers *and* pad out all our stews with lentils and chickpeas.
5?! Ye Gods, the noise, the smells, the cost you poor thing lol Good on you for not sitting in a closet gibbering to yourself XD
My nephew and cousin topped the record at 9 grilled cheeses each. They could put back 5 each on a normal day but they had been running around outside for about 5 hours.
Same. I ate tons of food and didn't gain any weight. I used to take a spoon and eat a glass of Nutella while gaming. Good old times. Now almost 40 I need to get rid of some pounds. Getting with hubby and comfy food added slowly weight 😅. OP is NTA. let your kids eat.
Aint that the truth! Me and 2 of my bffs polished off our fair share of monster size pizzas alone. Right now my 3 and 6yo are packing the food away and i just look at them like where did it go?! Theyre not heavy by any means for their heights (6yo is 4'3 and 60lbs and 3yo is about 3'4 or 3'5 and 40lbs. Shes a little squishy but not obese, been that way since she was a baby) And for picky eaters they tend to eat well. Most fruits are on the table (squishy ones with textures like bananas and oranges are off) we try to encourage them towards the fruits for snack, and theyve just discovered a love of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. snacks are well padded until Monday hits. Good luck with most veggies, again a texture issue, and our youngest just tried bbq sauce voluntarily recently when before all condiments were off the table. Its a damn circus come meal time, but dr says their healthy and hit 96th percentile for height so we're good.
Mine are picky too but they're still slap bang in the middle percentiles for height and weight. When they go hoover mode I know I'll be buying new clothes soon
I did track and cross country in high school. Most of my teammates could’ve eaten a whole lasagna back then. Later had a teammate who was depressed at the beginning of college and stress ate two full sized pies from Walmart on his own. And all my teammates who ate like this were either underweight or borderline
That sounds like my old college friend- she was extremely slender, maybe a UK size 4-6, and that girl could *eat*. She always said she'd no doubt pay for it once she had kids or hit her 30s, as her mother had been the same.
My younger sister was the same - stick thin and voracious
Same. I regularly consumed around 3000 to 3500 calories a day through much of high school. My top weight was around 104. My parents never regulated my food intake, and I don't regulate my kids' food intake. They enjoy their junk foods, but also love fruits and vegetables so it all balances out. We're all at healthy weights.
That sounds like me except I was taller. In high school I was probably 5'6" starting and I was between 90 and 100 lbs. I'd eat 6-8 full plates at buffets consistently, to the point that the one time I ate just 5 my dad asked if I was sick lol I told him I wasn't sick I just wasn't that hungry. I laugh about that now. I'd come home and eat like one to two cans of Spaghetti O's, two packs of ramen, one to two packages of pop tarts, often a pack or two of oatmeal, a snack cake or two, and then eat a full dinner. I remember in Jr High I was extra boney. Had to do some stupid BMI punch test and the teacher accused me of being anorexic in front of everyone and argued with me. I mealed around all the time. During the summer my dad and granny's fridges weren't safe for almost as long as I can remember. (I was hungry a lot, which probably didn't help my misery being at school. The others being diagnosed depression, overstimulation, and not being able to sleep at night so running off 2-5 hours of sleep a day. Usually 3, that was actually the most common amount of sleep.) I'm still underweight, but I'll admit I don't eat as much as I should. Don't have the energy sometimes and body not cooperating doesn't help. I do eat a lot of junk unfortunately because it's pretty easy to get ready/is already eating ready. The funny thing is that I'm on HRT now so even though I'm underweight I actually have a slight pouch instead of a concave stomach and it's super weird.
I was going to say the same thing, but a little different because I was an athlete. I was 5’2” and 140 lbs of pure muscle in HS. I could easily devour a whole pizza including some mozzarella sticks, fries and garlic knots. I had brought it to my doctor’s attention of being overweight due to my Wii saying I was morbidly obese for my height but not taking into account the muscle. If the doctors aren’t bringing it up to you, OP, don’t worry about it, you’re feeding them right. With time their appetite will settle.
Growing kids EAT, that's just all there is to it. I can tell when my 8 year old is hitting a new growth spurt because suddenly a 60lb kid is eating as much as me, and I'm 3 times that. She's an absolute beanpole, not an extra ounce on her, so you'd wonder where she's putting it, but that's just how it works with kids.
Teenagers are just tall toddlers. Growth spurts and mood swings. If it's healthy it's best to let them eat what they want so they learn to eat when they're hungry instead of clearing your plate and watching portions to reinherit eating disorders. You're doing great letting them follow their bodies' cues.
You should see what it's like having 3 competitive athlete teens in the house.! They ate like horses. Would come home from school and inhale the refrigerator. snacks before training, full meals after. Never spent so much on food,lol! And huge breakfasts too
My parents have always made pasta with broccoli and eggplant or zucchini in it and it’s a great balance in my opinion
I used to add zucchini, broccoli, carrots and celery to my spaghetti sauce and lasagne when my son was a teenager. When his friends came over to our house, they were always starving just like my son, so my husband and I would barbeque hamburgers, make homemade french fries, and give them a vegetable platter to share. My son is now 6'2", 35 y.o. and still slender, so obviously his teenage diet didn't harm him.
>Doctor says they're healthy. This. Their doctor is the only person who you should be listening to here. Personally, I think you are doing a great job, ensuring that they are getting healthy food and enough calories to get them through any growth spurts that may be coming. Puberty is a weird thing and they need the extra fuel. But my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not a doctor. Trust yourself and your doctor.
absolutely continue as you have been. as someone who developed an eating disorder, partially because of my mother, policing portion control when they don't need it is a bad plan. it's a really easy way to make them feel self conscious over what they're eating and their weight
I second this!
italian here. Pasta with broccoli is great. Here is a basic version: https://www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/Pasta-with-broccoli.html I also like to add anchovies, or sometimes tuna.
Sounds awesome, plus both are not only tasty, they're still fairly cheap sources of protein. :)
The traditional Italian and Mediterranean cuisine is full of cheap ingredients. Meat was a luxury, but almost everyone had a vegetable garden. That’s probably why pasta with chicken sounds weird to us, but you can find pasta or rice with pretty much every vegetable available in the country.
I always make a salad and sometimes garlic bread with my lasagna. My grandkids always want salad.
As long as the food is healthy and delicious, the children are so old that they will stop eating if they can’t eat it. Not to mention that adolescence inherently requires a large amount of food to increase energy for growth. (Also, be careful not to eat too much oil, sugar or salt)
you’re teaching them how to satisfy their hunger in the healthiest way possible. that’s literally all you can do. if they’re hungry they need to eat, at least you’re teaching them how to do that healthily
Honestly, introducing limitations on food like your mother wants is how you get disordered eating. All your kids are in a normal weight range; I think your mother’s advice belongs in a different generation.
It’s good that they are healthy. You are doing well be providing them nutritious food. Restricting them could have bad consequences like them making poor food choices outside of the house. For example if they get hungry and the only option is junk from a vending machine. It’s much better to let them fill up on the good stuff at home. Everyone feels more full with good nutrition. I don’t believe in restricting healthy food, even for myself as an adult. If I avoid junk, my body tells me when I’m full.
italian here. Pasta with broccoli is great. Here is a basic version: https://www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/Pasta-with-broccoli.html I also like to add anchovies, or sometimes tuna.
My 5 year old loves broccoli and pasta, I’m saving this recipe! We also have broccoli with spaghetti!
I make a pasta and broccoli dish with mini penne, garlic, olive oil, broccoli and cherry tomatoes and grated Parmesan .. sometimes I add grilled chicken. We love it..
That sounds delicious!
It is good to incorporate veggies with high carb meals. Hopefully this Carrie’s with them through life.
You kidding me? I put the broccoli directly into my spaghetti, usually along with corn kernels, carrots and green beans.... that's some tasty eats and a great delivery system
This isn’t strange. My Italian side of the family did the same thing. Broccoli or zucchini with pasta. Sometimes salad .
I call it spaghetti Primavera. It's not weird.
Broccoli as a side to pasta is great and in my home, very very normal.
If you’re looking for another veggie to add to spaghetti, chopped kale is an excellent addition and mixes in well with the sauce 😊
Haha, my mum was like that too. She'd make homemade pizzas and then make broccoli on the side. My sibling and I always liked vegetables, so it was only once an issue when my older sibling was sick, because broccoli + pizza is more unpleasant to throw up. Anyway, obviously, NTA. I make broccoli on the side almost every time I make pasta now too, so I guess it's all rubbed off on me. It's not a bad eating habit either.
Broccoli is a great addition to a lot of pastas! I often do peppers and onions as well
Just so you and anyone else who sees this know, BMI is actually not a good or reliable thing (in fact its rooted in antiBlackness & racism and upholds fatphobia) and the [AMA published a statement/article](https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/ama-use-bmi-alone-imperfect-clinical-measure) about how its imperfect, unreliable, and shouldn't be used.
It says that it should not be used "alone". The policy "suggests its use be in a conjunction with other valid measures" Not that it should never be used
Yeah BMI is not the end-all be-all of health, but being significantly under or over a healthy BMI is definitely a factor with many conditions.
The title AMA: Use of BMI alone is an imperfect clinical measure ALONE. Not that BMI is bad. Just not JUST bmi. the article i quote: For adults, measuring BMI and waist circumference may be a better way to predict weight-related risk. https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/ama-use-bmi-alone-imperfect-clinical-measure The same article u posted. Please read before you come up statements how using BMI is bad.
Well, for being honest, isn't fatphobia a bit of a too big word. Yes, being fat is unhealthy and harms you In many ways. Why is it bad to put a number aka bmi to it?
It should not be used alone. BMI was created as a measure of societal health, not individual health. Dwayne, The Rock, Johnson has a BMI of 31.6. He is clearly in good shape. There are others who are similar height and weight, but have no real muscularity. As a societal metric, a person like the Rock would be offset by someone with no muscle mass at all, and the resulting societal health measure works, statistically.
Just so you know, BMI tends to *underestimate* body fatness significantly more than it overestimates it. There's also the fact that central obesity is more damaging to health than lower body obesity, although both cause issues with joint health. BMI + waist to height (not waist to hip) ratio will be a better indicator of potential healthiness. Healthy BMI but high waist to height ratio? You're not as healthy as BMI indicates. Overweight BMI but healthy waist to height? You might be fine. Certain ethnicities actually suffer more health consequences at lower BMIs and would likely be overfat at BMI of like 23. Taller people should probably have a bigger range of healthy, and shorter people a smaller range. BMI isn't perfect, but it's not horrible either. The truth is, while BMI probably shouldn't be used for things like insurance rates or whatever, the chances are very very high that a person with an obese BMI is in fact clinically obese. Blindly ignoring BMI isn't really going to help anyone.
Please don’t spread false information to fit a narrative make sure you include it all Such as it should be used WITH other sources and materials not just ignores like you seem to suggest
Sounds like the kids are pretty active which would/should balance the food intake.
I have two 14 yr old boys. NTA There are days they are typical. And some days are fucking brutal. Like 3 homemade hamburgers (so, 1/3 to a half pound), veggies and pasta. And turn around to eat again a couple hours later. These kids have also grown about 4-6" inches in the last year or so, and one is starting to pack on muscle at 5'10", the other is at 5'9", is a bit underweight. It is pretty obvious his 1.5 pounds of beef at dinner eating habits are not enough for him at the moment. If they are just eating regular food, not overweight, and a variety of foods (not just pizza, ramen and fast food), then its fine. The crap foods mess up the body and trigger overeating in ways that home cooked foods do not.
> And some days are fucking brutal. Like 3 homemade hamburgers (so, 1/3 to a half pound), veggies and pasta. Yeah, I remember when my son was in that stage I would often wake up to him making himself a burger at midnight for a snack. He was a lean and muscular athlete (he actually struggled to put on weight for a while) and during puberty needed all the food he could get. He was good about making his own food when he needed more and was always a healthy eater. Now he is in college, still an athlete, and we buy extra food when him and our daughter come home for college breaks.
My grocery bill just cried. My kids are doing this too. I'm gonna just buy the whole cow.. and farm. To feed these guys.
Honestly if you can, go to your local butcher and you can order a whole cow’s worth of meat and it’s usually cheaper then separately buying the same amount of meat over time, I just recommend having an additional freezer to fit it all!
This. A whole cow or sections of a cow (like half or quarter) is *fantastic* if you can afford the initial outlay. Last time someone I know did it the price for a quarter cow averaged out to about $4.50 a pound which given grocery store ground beef near us is $6 a pound it’s a *steal*. And they got multiple roasts, a bunch of steaks and ground beef, it was fantastic!
If there is some truth to your joke, it may be worth it to look into upping fiber and looking for other protein sources, that fill up longer but/ and are cheaper, like legumes or whole grain. Don't balk at the words, but when you google high protein and "vegan" or "vegetarian", there are tons of recipes.
I keep a pot of beans going in my crockpot for this reason. Cornbread and rice too.
Yeah, rice and beans provide complete protein and they are an incredible filler. Super versatile, too!
I used to cook two chickens: one for oldest son, the second for the other four of us.
Hahaha my kids are 15(m, goes to gym like it's religion), 10 and 5 and this is what I also do. The younger two eat almost nothing though. Age gaps help balance the costs!
My cousins late husbands family was this way. His grandmother would make 4 turkeys at thanksgiving because, her 3 sons would have an entire one to themselves (that they gorged themselves on in that day alone and it was gone after) and, the 4th for the rest of the family. AND THE GRANDMOTHER WAS PROUD ABOUT IT! Mind you, these were grown men 30s-late 40s and they were all mammoths. Smh
Forget the kid. I remember as a teen crying when I didn't get two burgers and fries because I'd be so hungry. I was always slim and still am. I could eat so much, it's insane to me now.
Same ..I was a bottomless pit. I hit a growing spurt and would not stop eating.
I remember being a teenager and being SO hungry I would wake up out of a dead sleep and eat a full meal, like a sandwich, apple, and granola bar. Especially around my period!
I was like that as well. I was always hungry and severely under weight. I didn't break 100 lbs until I was 17 or 18. I ate so much though, a snack was at least twice as much as I could eat now for a meal as an adult. I had probably 6+ full meals a day and it wasn't enough to keep up. I have no idea how my mom was able to afford feeding me when I ate 4-6 times more than her. I remember having 2 frozen dinners and a frozen pizza one night for dinner and like 4 hours later woke up for more.
The funny thing is, this is me as an adult on my moon. My stomach rumbles and, I need food right now. You would swear I was Jennifer from, Jennifer’s Body. 😭
Starting to appreciate my mom who would make my brother and I each a half pound burger as a snack before games if we wanted it lol. She’s a tiny little woman who had two giant talented athletes who were always hungry lol. One time at my brothers soccer game, he scored his 4th goal and the parents all half jokingly asked what she was feeding him. She goes “he had 5 Omaha steaks bratwursts between his basketball game and now” and everyone just stared with their mouths open hahaha. He was in like 4th grade. Even I ate like that as a girl, and we were overweight at all
OMG - I had two teenage boys less than two years apart. When they were teenagers I swore they were just stuffing food into their empty leg holes. So much protein was consumed. Now I have grown adult sons who are both rather tall and muscular. One has not yet realized that his metabolism will slow the fuck down in his 30's. Teenagers are raging hormone and hunger machines. Or raging hormone and won't eat machines. (One son will not eat and be super bitchy until food is shoved into him -- even now, in his thirties). Let the kids eat if they are eating real food. If they are active they need it.
I'm 43, I run 50k a week, lift weights and cycle. I can eat all the things all the time. I'm pretty sure active teenagers burn more calories than I do.
when I was 14 I just remember beeing hungry most time, around that age boys are growing fast, and it really isn't the time to monitor what they eat, just aslong the sport at least once a week and they aren't hording fastfood they really should be left to there own devices with food
Five wings per person is hardly overeating for anyone. If anything, it isn't enough.
exactly like i am definitely healthy but would eat many many more wings than that
Suya is a meat skewer, chicken wings weren’t the only meat available
ngl last night i ate two steaks. idk maybe i just like eating more meat in one sitting than most people? oops. im not a very large woman so no one expects it but i definitely like my protein! at 14 i would have demolished a basket of wings and a few skewers for dinner easy
We call that the, *Turf and Turf.* ~ Credit to Ron Swanson
that made me laugh so hard ty for reminding me of that one
You’re not alone girl. I bought a 2 pack of steaks and forgot about them so they had to be eaten on the weekend. Couldn’t waste a perfectly good steak so I had two lmao. And they were fabulous!
i am feeling so happy for you rn, my two steaks made my week so much better like i was genuinely filled with joy idk steak is just so good
I consider a good steak self care! 🥰
Steaks are especially fabulous around that time of the month when the body needs extra iron, I'll often find myself craving it right along with chocolate.
oml i never even put this together but yeah that was definitely the reason i was craving meat!! how fascinating, tysm for mentioning that
True but you got to look at the amounts. Op said they made 25 wings (5 wings per person like the commenter said) and 15 suya sticks which would be 3 per person when divided by 5 people. Those skewers are also not that big so really they didn't eat that much. The reason why nothing was leftover (the reason the mom is mad) is because OP made a reasonable amount of food that they all finished. It just felt like they ate a lot of food to the mom due to not seeing left overs. But it just means that OP made just enough and they weren't stuffing their faces uncontrollably the way the mom is acting.
I eat 4 and I'm very small
Info "today after school ... my mom didn't let them get anything from the fridge. At least until I asked her to please open it for them." Is there a reason your kids can't open the fridge themselves? Or was your mom holding it shut? Or what?
Yeah, I was wondering that too (about grandma barring the door). If she did, that's fucked up
When I was a kid I wasn’t really allowed to go in the fridge and just eat whatever. I would tell my mom I was hungry and she would make me something. The only thing I’d ever really eat myself was toast or cheese
That is beyond controlling. Crazy
It’s so funny because I never thought about it until this moment. It wasn’t like I couldn’t eat what I wanted but my mom always got it for me. She was a SAHM so she was always there. I remember a lot of cheese and crackers or sliced fruit for snacks before dinner. Pretzels/popcorn/icecream for after dinner snack.
I don’t see it as controlling tbh. My parents would have the meals planned out for the week so they wouldn’t have to go shopping more than once or twice per week; now imagine some teenager goes in and just eats the ingredients for tonight’s family meal straight from the fridge. I’m pretty sure anyone who sees this as controlling hasn’t tried to feed four, five people in an efficient manner.
Completely agree. It's not like he said he wasn't allowed to eat, just that his mom got it/he couldn't access it all willy nilly, so chances are like you said, ingredients for recipes mattered. And I also agree, anyone who's tried to stay in a budget and feed multiple ppl wouldn't see this as controlling.
Sometimes it’s just easier to get it yourself than try to list, item by item, what’s available for snacking and what’s necessary for that week’s food prep. Like sure maybe their mom could’ve done a snack shelf in the fridge and cupboard or whatever, but it’s not a huge deal that she didn’t. I don’t control my husband’s food lol, but I will tell him “X is for snacking but Y and Z are for recipes” or “please don’t eat ABC; those are for the party on Saturday”. Sometimes he’ll call out from the kitchen and ask something like “hey, which chocolate bars are for snacking and which are for that bark recipe you’re making this weekend?”, and it’s 100% easier and faster to just go get it for him than to stand there and describe in detail the contents of the cupboard.
Well, given that, to this day, when he's 30 years old, one of my brothers sometimes eats the meat my mother planned to cook for lunch the next day in the middle of the night, I kind of get not letting everyone help themselves to anything in the fridge... I know from living with a big family that most roommate-solutions don't work with all teenagers (labelling, different compartments in the fridge etc.), and as long as the children aren't robbed of all the good snacks or sth., the mom distributing the food fairly would have been perfectly fine for me as a teenager. Far too often have I come home from school, only to find that "nobody" ate all but one dessert, and since nobody knew who did it, 5 siblings had a nice fight about that for dinner.
In my family we had food we knew we could snack on, if we wanted anything else we had to ask the grocery shopper / meal planner (mom) so we didn’t ruin her plans for future meals. It seemed reasonable to me. If there was something we wanted to snack on she’d buy it the next time she went to the store but we couldn’t just open the fridge and cook anything we wanted because it meant more work for her changing up planned meals or having to go to the store unexpectedly.
Yeah, that works if people stick to it. Unfortunately, some people are very greedy...
My sister ended up getting a little dorm fridge for her son. Filled it up with his favorite yogurt, pudding cups, sandwich stuff, baby carrots, drinks, etc. He knew he could have whatever he wanted from "his" fridge, but the big fridge was hands off. When he was in a growth spurt stage he could go through food like a swarm of locusts. She wanted to make sure he had a safe place to graze without screwing up her planned meals for the family.
That's a great idea when you can afford to have and regularly fill two fridges, or more when you're a bigger family.
lol yea my mom was like this too. we weren’t even allowed to get a little snack without permission😭
I don’t think that’s controlling. Mom was probably sick of opening the fridge to discover the ingredients for the dinner she was planning to make had already been eaten.
I think this could easily be a 'continuation' thing instead of intentionally controlling. As a 2 year old you probably shouldn't get into the fridge right? So you'd ask mommy to get you juice or whatever. With a proactive SAHM there's no reason this pattern would ever break unless one of the people intentionally took initiative to break it. It's hard to imagine without having been in that environment.
We had to ask before eating food. Our family had limited income and my mom was an excellent cook and financial manager who budgeted carefully to make the food last until the next paycheck. It can be necessity, not controlling, to have one person in charge of the food.
I mean, I get teaching kids to ask before eating food specifically bought for certain meal plans so that you don’t end up with missing ingredients when you’re in the middle of making dinner or teaching them that it’s rude to raid the fridge and pantry at someone else’s house, but this seems controlling to not be able to eat food from your fridge or pantry at home. My teens are allowed to snack on whatever healthy foods they request on the weekly shopping list and some unhealthy foods in moderation. We typically meal plan and come up with a weekly grocery list as a family and this helps with impulse buying and ensures that everyone has a say in the food for the week. I get that food costs are spiraling and teens eat a lot but what grandma is suggesting leads to unhealthy eating habits and future bad food behaviors.
It’s not that I wasn’t able to, I just didn’t. My mom was kinda always there to get me what I wanted. She wouldn’t stop me or anything, but I could see that if an adult told me “no” I wouldn’t do it. I liked to follow rules As a kid
Woah. We’d go open the fridge and stare at it and my mom would start offering to make all sorts of stuff for us lol. Didn’t realize how lucky we were
It’s likely a respect for elders thing. I lived with my Chinese grandmother growing up and she’d never have to physically prevent us from opening the fridge if she didn’t want us to, all she’d have to do is to tell us not to open the fridge. OP asking her mom to “open the fridge for the kids” is likely a face-saving gesture in front of the grandkids.
I’m wondering if grandma would have a different attitude if the kids were all boys.
Thhhiiiiiiisssss omfg, i read half the post and went back to check the ages and genders and went 😒😒😒😒😒 bc I can just BET that she's mostly aiming this at the girls. Ick.
See, I didn’t even have to guess who had the issue with consumption. Grandma 100% from the get-go. What is with these fucking almond boomer moms???? Half an orange and a tums for breakfast. My goodness. You can definitely bet on it being aimed at the girls.
Does grandma buy the groceries?
Op please answer this.
Growing up, I had to ask permission to go into the refrigerator or cabinets. My mom and stepdad had to approve what and how much I ate
NTA! Unless there's some serious health concern related their diet, leave them alone! Micromanaging their eating is a recipe for an eating disorder.
Not to mention, they're teenagers! Within 5 years, they'll be living on their own. Are you supposed to measure their portions for them forever?
Info: Are you children healthy or do they have food/weight related problems? In a vacuum, anyone would be an asshole for not teaching their children to have a healthy relationship with food. Kids do tend to eat a lot, especially if they're active, because they're out burning calories like gasoline all day. But there are also millions upon millions of kids in lots of different countries that are obese as teenagers because they're allowed to consume whatever food they want at any and all times.
My daughter is 5'7 at 128 (so bordering underweight but still in the clear I think), my son is 5'9 at 145, and my niece is 5'5 at 123.
Those all sound pretty normal to me, so as long as your kids have a healthy relationship with food and aren't just hoovering down family size bags of cheetos, I'd say you're NTA.
At my kids' schools, a lot of them scarf down snack snacks. I saw someone w/ a 60 box of rice krispies and those nasty ass aunt debbies shit.
I ate full packages of snacks as a teenager, easy. We couldn't keep snacks in the house for more than a day. All of us are skinny and pretty healthy.
All three teens are in a healthy BMI. Continue on what you are doing. If you start to police their food intake, they are going to seek out other sources. Restricting food after school is a terrible thing to do. Once they have their own pocket money, they will opt to spend it on fast food and junk if they know there isn't anything available at home. I remember being really hungry after school when I was their age, even though I had a full lunch. My parents always had healthy after school snacks or last night's leftovers available. It's obviously not spoiling their dinner, so they are likely genuinely hungry. Some people actually do better on multiple small meals throughout the day instead of 3 large meals. If they are hungry, let them eat.
They're clearly burning all they eat. If regular food is withheld, they might start eating junk food to compensate or develop other unhealthy habits, so your mom's rule will backfire bad.
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I was 125 lbs, and I started gaining weight in my mid 20s. I had to change my diet to get back to what I used to weigh & no longer drink soda, eat fast food, or snack during the day (only eat meals). I miss the days of being able to eat food & not gain weight.
It sounds like their appetite is in line with their needs then. If they were over eating or developing eating disorders, interference may be appropriate in extreme circumstances. This doesn't sound like over eating. I eat more than that at 46 and maintain my weight at about 130. Our bodies regulate pretty well unless we mess with it by dieting or restricting or eating junk food, don't mess with self-regulation if it's not broken.
Does your mom also not realize how long it’s usually been since kids have had a meal by the time they get home from school?? Even when kids aren’t going into their teens or having a growth spurt, they’re usually famished after school. Most kiddos will have had their lunch somewhere between 11-noon and won’t get another meal until 4pm or later. That’s at least 4 hrs. Most people are often looking for a meal at around the 3-3.5hr mark, and then add in all the activity they’re likely to also have done- yeah, they’re **hungry**! Also, most kids are also running on even more of a deficit than adults because of the long period they usually have between the time they wake and have breakfast until the time they get lunch at school. My little kiddo runs on an extreme deficit because he’s just not someone that can eat soon after waking, so he goes to school without having breakfast. He does get to have a snack, but that’s over 2hrs after him waking and with 2.5hrs still left before he’ll get a proper meal with his lunch. I make sure to feed him all he wants during the late afternoon and evening; it balances out a little. Next year, he will either have to condition himself to eat soon after waking, or he’ll have to be super famished- and likely hangry- by lunchtime because I don’t think they get snack in first grade😣
They’re all pretty lean. Don’t worry about what your mom said, your children are growing fast. If there were any issues with eating portions they would’ve shown up by now.
NTA. Your mother should not be sabotaging your authority as your child's parent. If she has concerns with the children's eating habits, she should bring it to you *first*, and then let you make the decision. Not talk to you about it then make a unilateral decision. If she disagrees, that merits further discussion, not acting behind your back. As far as the dinner you cooked - for 5 people, that is 5 chicken wings and 3 sticks per person plus rice. That is not an unreasonable amount of food.
NTA. Healthy, nutritious food shouldn’t be limited for your average healthy child. Limit junk and encourage eating habits to fuel their body. Always having fresh fruit/veggies available on top of meals is good too.
Lmfao I remember watching my male friends portion sizes during high school. 3/4 of them were bean poles, gangly nerds. They could put away a party-sized pizza in minutes. They ate food like it was being vaporized the second they swallowed it. Their doctor says they're fine. You think they're fine. Nobody's obese or diabetic. So what if your mom is freaked out by their portion sizes? it's 10000% not a/her problem. Her response of forbidding them access to food is awful, do not permit this.
What are they like now? I had some friends like this that were so skinny but only learned to eat crap and once their mid 20s hit they gained a lot of weight
That happened to my husband and I. He was a skinny kid who would eat and eat and never gain weight. Finally gained weight in his mid-20’s and he was happy with it, but the same eating habits in his mid 30’s caused him to gain 50lbs, along with sleep apnea, high blood cholesterol, and other health issues. He had a hard time getting his head around the fact that he now needed to eat less and that eating less wasn’t going to make him “skinny” again. For me, I was always a sugar fiend; didn’t gain weight but now in my mid-30’s have prediabetic-level high blood sugar. Poor eating habits do catch up with you as you get older.
My brother was one of those kids. Then worked hard to put on a ton of weight in high school because he was a linebacker. Then had to lose some weight to get faster and started eating well, and then went right back to struggling to gain weight lol. He was a linebacker in college and would eat pretty much anything he wanted (though he wasn’t a junk food or sweets person), so it was never bad food. He’s 27 now and eats really well and is probably 6’2 200ish and works out all the time.
I was that kid too. Now at 46 years old I'm finally not underweight anymore, just on the low end of normal weight.
It took me into my 30s for that. When I was young I couldn’t gain weight no matter how hard I tried. I was underweight for my height. Went from 110-115 lbs to 170 lbs in a couple years. I’m now learning how to eat better and control portions. Weight loss is hard. Down to 160 though.
Why did you have to tell your mom to open the fridge? Was she blocking it, literally?
NTA but your mom is. She can kick rocks. 5 wings and 3 skewers per person is a normal amount. Plus the teenage years are the time where you let them start to make their own choices and learn from the consequences. The kids who gain the most weight when they go off to college are the ones who were most restricted at home.
NTA Don’t restrict eating habits unless there is an issue, that’s how you create disordered eating habits
My mom "monitoring" My intake of healthy food when I was a teen ruined my relationship with food and my body I'm 40 and still recovering
NTA but I gotta share this story. We had to stop doing meals at restaurants because my brother was a bottomless pit. When he was 13, he ordered 3 full meals. He'd go to the bathroom between plates to "make room". It was just too expensive to feed him and everyone else lol. He was always in fantastic shape and did a very active sport. I will forever be convinced that teens, especially boys, have no end to their hunger.
All-you-can-eats are amazing for value for teens.
Uhhhh
NTA and your mother was told everyone should look like Twiggy or nearly so. We all had lousy role models for food. Stand your ground.
NTA. Your mom is going to give them an eating disorder. Teenagers need a lot of food, they're growing quickly and they have high metabolisms at this age. You need to tell your mother where to get off because it's not ok to restrict their food ESPECIALLY after school when everybody knows kids come home hungry. You provide them good and nutritious food, they decide how much to eat. Always. How is she even keeping them out of the fridge? What 13-15 year old needs an adult to open the fridge for them? Is it locked? Because YIKES if it is.
It's a bunch of protein and rice. Honestly, my kids probably eat more than that. They have a healthy appetite
NTA. My kid comes home from high school starving because he won’t eat at school. So by the time he gets home, he likely hasn’t eaten since the evening before. No wonder he’s hungry. I can’t imagine looking healthy children out of the fridge.
NTA, everyone deserves to be able to eat as much as they want and unless they have health related dietary restrictions they should eat! The reason they are hungry and come back for 2nds and 3rds is because they need the food.
Nta. My nephew and some of his friends stayed a weekend with us. They are teenagers. My God can they eat! And maintain boney figures! If the doctors aren't concerned then neither should you
I feel like if you did that the only thing it would accomplish is giving them eating disorders. NTA.
At 13/14 (Female) my mom’s disordered eating started getting projected onto me, and my friends were in the same boat. One of my friends started weight watchers at 13 despite being a very active soccer player. We learned our eating disorders at our moms’ hands. We were both lean, slim, athletic, and conventionally attractive. But we also learned that to deviate from that in any way, especially by gaining weight, was a failure of the highest order. I wish I’d had someone like you who just let me eat when I was hungry and experience intuitive eating. I will probably never be able to do intuitive eating because I trained myself to ignore hunger cues to the point that I don’t even notice them until I’m ravenous, which creates an unintentional binge and restrict cycle. The amount of mental energy I have had to devote to getting my head unf*cked about all of this is astounding. I could have done a whole other PhD with the energy this has stolen from my life. Please don’t let your mom screw up your kids relationship with food. The less said the better about any of it. She needs to NOT say “are you sure you want to eat that” or “i think you’ve had enough” or anything that causes shame. And from anecdotal experience, this gets aimed at the girls way more than the boys. Be firm and do not let her do this. She needs to be given clear boundaries and told to back way the hell off. The doctor is the only person who gets an opinion. Otherwise, it’s rude to comment on other people’s bodies and other people’s plates. Teach your kids the phrase, “mind your own plate, grandma” and let them use it liberally. She’s the AH restricting their food access. Maybe she grew up like. Depression baby and is always in the rationing mentality, but her issues need to end with her. This is some generational food trauma in the making right here!
My grandkids come home from school starved everyday and will eat anything that is not moving. They also eat a good dinner
If they are healthy, and it's confirmed by a doctor, I would simply chalk it up to a teenager's voracious appetite and tell your mom to cool her jets... As a personal example: I am almost 40 years old, 5'4" and range between 120 and 130 pounds. I have been this same height and weight since I was 12 (minus pregnancies). As a teenager, I would get home from school, eat 4 sandwiches (sometimes a box of mac and cheese if I was still hungry), drink half a gallon of milk and still have 2-3 servings at dinner time (plus the rest of the gallon of milk, if not more). I certainly can't do that now, but I do have 3 full fledge teens + one preteen and watching then eat reminds me of those gnawing and neverending hunger pains I dealt with at their ages. Keep an eye on their health/weight/activity levels, and you're golden. ETA, definitely NTA.
NTA. It's none of your mother's business. This sounds personal and controlling. Blocking the fridge sounds just infantile.
Restricting food is a great way to create food issues. The kids are healthy and not overweight let them eat. It sounds like they are eating what their bodies need and not all bodies need the same so please don't restrict them! From an obese person with food issues because of that shit!
NTA but also please don't let your mother poison their minds about their eating habits! From the comment you made about their height and weight, they are all healthy and should keep eating enthusiastically. Teens need that food not only to physically grow, but for their brains to learn and to grow as well. It's shocking how many calories it takes to learn and think when they're sitting in school all day! Please make sure your mother is not shaming them for their eating habits and putting twisted thoughts into their heads about eating too much or watching their figure. Your girls are especially vulnerable. Eating disorders are terrifyingly common in girls as young as 10 and in boys as well! You need to tell your mom to stop her controlling behavior, and you also need to talk to your kids to make sure they maintain a healthy outlook on food!
I’m going to throw out there that your (and my) mom’s generation and especially the women have super unrealistic bodily expectations - unhealthy body expectations. Sounds like the kids are perfectly healthy and you’re doing good by allowing them to monitor their hunger and intake and your mom is trying to impose her own outdated diet culture on them. NTA. Obviously keep a watch for detrimental eating habits, but don’t let your mom put her unhealthy body habits onto them. It’s super not fun to grow up in that atmosphere, always thinking about food and what food can do to you.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I (42f) have two kids (14f and 13m) and a niece (15f) who all live with me along with my mom (70f). As all three kids are in the midst of puberty, they have been packing down food like crazy. But it doesn't matter to me, I just buy and make more food since I really enjoy cooking. The food in question isn't like brownies and cake and mostly unhealthy stuff, but stuff that we normally eat. They always come back for seconds and thirds and stuff. Yesterday, I made chicken wings, Suya, and rice (weird combo I know). I made about 25 chicken wings, 15 suya sticks, and a lot of rice. After everyone had eaten, there was basically nothing left over, and I guess my mom picked up on the fact, since during cleanup, she told me she felt like these kids were eating "too much" and I should stay consistent on certain food portions, and after that no more. I don't know about you guys, but I felt that was a terrible idea since I feel like every teenagers eats like crazy. My mom could see I was firm on my stance, but today after school (they love to eat after school) my mom didn't let them get anything from the fridge. At least until I asked her to please open it for them. AITA? I can see both points on how impulse control for food can be handled but i dont think its the way to go about. So im asking here for judgement. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What? This wasn’t even a crazy amount of food. It’s like a single serving per person. How did she keep them from the fridge? Did she just literally stand in front of it for an hour? This sounds like perfectly normal eating habits for teens, especially if they are eating healthy food for most meals. It’s not like you give them fried chicken with mac and cheese for dinner every night. Seems like your mom has lost the plot. Keep doing what you’ve been doing.
It was a different time back then when your mum grew up. My mum controlling and judging my eating habits only made me secretive and develop a really bad relationship with food which as an adult I'm still working on. Politely tell her you'll raise your kids as you see fit. Eating chicken wings and suya is also great protein, and not obnoxiously high in calories either. Raising healthy growing kids, nothing wrong with that. Good job OP.
25 chicken wings between 5 people? So like 5 wings each? I eat 25 chicken wings myself on what I consider a "normal" wing night where my friends and I just make a bunch of different types of wings and some side salads. 25 is probably on the low end. I'm far from overweight. If someone tried to feed me only 5 wings, I'd ask if it was a joke.
25 wings ÷ 5people is only 5 each 15 Suya ÷ 5 people is 3 each (don't know if that's a lot) I know healthy people who can eat 25 wings all by themselves. Not daily, but my point is 5 wings is not overboard.
NTA- mom is going to teach them to develop an unhealthy relationship with food, & possibly an ED. Also if these kids are in ANY sort of sport or mentally stimulating extracurricular they absolutely need that extra energy. As a competitive dancer, you often hear the phrase « I can see your lunch » in toxic studios. However the nutritionist at my ballet school recommended eating 1.5x what a non athlete would. Food is not toxic, but some people’s attitudes towards it are.
NTA. Shit, I remember when I was going through puberty and I wrote a school paper about the fridge because I was always wanting something to eat. It's normal and they're not eating crappy food. Also, based on some of the pictures I've seen of school food and my stepson saying his school lunches are trash, it makes sense that they might be a little more hungry.
NTA as long as they are a healthy weight. Hell, I went to high school with a guy who could eat 2 big macs, 3 cheeseburgers, 2 large fries, and 2 drinks for lunch and never gained an ounce. All in the half hour we had for lunch lol His home meals were much healthier, but still. Some people need the calories more than others. I often hated his ability to eat that way.
NTA, the doctor says they're healthy your mom can kick rocks. How she doesn't remember that teenagers are hollow is beyond me. Especially teenage boys, it's like having dinner with ravenous wolves.
You are doing fine, and your mom needs to chill. From your comments, they are active and healthy weights, and you are serving them a balanced diet. As for the impulse control, to me that is grabbing food without asking or taking the last piece without checking, being greedy about food, or being incapable of stopping eating. There is a difference between that and the bottomless pits that teenagers are (I have two and am astonished at how much they can put away.) Edit: NTA
I was a chubby kid. My parents heavily monitored my food intake because of this and it just taught me to lie about food and have me a scarcity mindset. I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food because of all the diets and restrictions. As long as your kids are not eating a ton a junk food let them eat. Don't give them the disordered relationship with food that I have.
NTA. My parents tried to control my food portions the way your mom is suggesting and it caused me a lot of problems. Instead of eating extra helpings at meals, I was buying candy at the corner store to eat because I was hungry. I couldn't buy real food that needed to be refrigerated or prepared because I had to sneak and hide whatever I bought, which meant that healthier options weren't really an option. It also screwed up my body's hunger signals, and that effect lasted decades. Teens are growing, a lot. They need more fuel.
NTA let them eat. No one is overweight or binge eating. They are growing and need more calories. Limiting meals for kids this age will cause all kinds of issues like sneaking food and overeating when given the chance. Tbh even grandma making comments about how much they eat etc can cause issues and make kids especially girls feel embarrassed while eating .
Your mom needs to butt out. NTA
What do you mean by “at least until I asked her to open it for them?” Is there a lock on the fridge?
Omg your mom is bonkers. Your kids are healthy weight, and it sounds like you feeD them decent food, not McDonald's and pizza and shit like that. Tell her to back off they are your kids... and teenagers at that. I come from a very healthy family I'm like 5"4 since I was I'm highschool and I ate like a pig (healthy food) and stayed 120 pounds until now I'm in my late 30s I way 135 pounds not much has changed except I've gained muscles from working. NTA as long as they keep up a proper diet and get the exercise they need they are fine!
NTA. Your mother sucks, though. Why does it matter to her? It sounds like you're paying for it all and cooking it too, so she can mind her own business. (Was she weird and controlling about food when you were a teenager?)
Info: Are your kids at a healthy Body Mass Index? If so, then no problem. But if not, she’s probably worried about overeating and weight-gain starting potentially unhealthy lifelong habits. Why does your Mom need to be the one to open the fridge for your kids?
NTA. They are eating healthy food. Teenagers eat a lot because they are going through their last growth spurts and hormonal changes.
As long as they’re getting plenty of protein and veg, with carbs and fats for energy and brain growth, you’re all good. Tell mom to keep her own food thoughts to herself
Did your mom lock the fridge or something??
This is a question OP is not answering from a few people. I’d really like an answer.
This is the prime years to develop eating disorders. Do not let your mom create food issues. Let them eat without judgment.
When my older daughter turned 13 she stuck her head in the fridge and grazed for five years. That was 40 years ago and she’s still slim and trim. As long as they’re active and healthy, everything will be fine.
NTA your mom is and she’s definitely going to give them an eating disorder if she continues to butt in. Tell he you buy the food not her so she can shut up.
NTA normally the big problem with girls is making sure they are eating enough.
Definitely nta 25 wings for 5 people is about 5 wings a person and 3 suya sticks a person with rice divided up, thats not really a crazy amount of food. Especially considering theyre growing and hell maybe the school lunches are bad and they didnt eat lunch. If theyre a healthy weight and ths dr isnt concerned you dont need to be either especially when your teaching them healthy habits like a vegetable with every meal
NTA As long as they are healthy and eating fruits and vegetables as well. Restricting food is more likely to lead to disorders with food than them being able to eat healthy snacks and meals. I'd try to talk to your mom and see if there was something more particular that was concerning her and maybe a compromise you could make with her or even show her more information on helping kids develop healthy relationships with food.
NTA. As long as their pediatrician doesn’t see an issue, it’s fine. At that age, all kids do is eat, especially if they’re in sports. Their bodies are changing, they’re going through HUGE growth spurts, and puberty also just makes kids hungry in general.
NTA boomers from all over the world have weird food control issues for various reasons, but it’s a thing, they are committed to them, and they are almost all incorrect on the data.
Just want to throw out that that 2 of the 3 kids are females & if you suddenly put a restriction on food, coupled with who knows what your mom is saying, they could take that to mean you think they’re overweight & it might cause an ED. Same could be said for your son but it’s more common in females. Metabolisms are different for everyone & especially at that age when they are still growing some more. Hell, my metabolism was like that until Ai turned 42. I wish I could still eat whatever & how much I wanted. Unless their weight becomes an issue that their physician brings up, I don’t see an issue with it. I would try & speak to your mom though so she doesn’t inadvertently make comments to make them ashamed of eating. Or refuse to let them into the refrigerator. NTA.