My Teen is a Junk Food Addict
How many parents of growing boys or girls are noticing an increase in the number or amount of snacks their teens consume? It just seems as if I cant keep enough snacks, fruits and drinks around the house. I know growing teens require a lot of fuel to keep them going but my son eats me out of the house.
Recently, my son has started having a lot of late night snacks. If your teen is like mine, they also reach for the snacks as soon as they get home from school. Sometimes my son says his lunch at school consists of only french fries and milk. This is not a healthy lunch and when he gets home he goes on a junk food binge. I thought I’d get smart and started to keep easy to grab snacks in the fridge such as apples, bananas, and yogurts. Even so, my son continues to reach for the chips, chocolate and cookies. I guess I need to cutback on junk and stock up on better food choices!
I can say that despite his snack habit, one thing that is nice about having a teen around is they learn to cook for themselves. On the nights I am running late getting home, it’s nice to know my son can grab something easy to cook for himself. I try to keep it to microwavable foods because it’s an easy and quick meal. Most parents I think can agree with the fact that cooking dinner is a major chore in itself after a long day at work. Therefore, I keep frozen pizzas and hot pockets on hand so my son can easily grab and cook! I love that he’s growing up and learning responsibilities such as cooking but he needs to learn how to make better food choices!!!
Any advice? Did you face this same challenge?
You’re right about kids and junk food. I have mentioned before on this blog that I always keep cooked, seasoned ground beef in the freezer in portions just right for making a taco or some nachos. The kids can just nuke it and put it in a tortilla for a quick meal with less processed stuff than the usual microwave meals. It’s a lot cheaper, too. I do the same with grilled chicken. We make too much and then it’s easy to nuke and make a quesadilla or a grilled chicken sandwich or salad or something. It’s hard to get kids to eat right. And I’m not the best example for mine, either!
Teen boys do love to learn to cook for themselves, though, since they are bottomless pits. I feel sorry for parents of teen boys every time we have some over to eat dinner with us. Those boys can sure put away some food!