Healthy snacks for kids

WantToBeSE

Thanks blue. My eating was so abnormal as a teen, its hard to know what is normal.
He turned his nose up to the sliced veggies and warmed himself up a bowl of rice pud

WantToBeSE

I must say that my youngest is happy to munch on the veggies...lots and lots of them!

bluebag

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Thanks blue. My eating was so abnormal as a teen, its hard to know what is normal.
He turned his nose up to the sliced veggies and warmed himself up a bowl of rice pud

Might be worth keeping in some big soups or big pan of stew, pasta and cheese that kind of thing. Most pizza cooks quicky and are fairly healthy.

I suppose at that age they need the carbs and the calories as they seem to grow a foot overnight.

ash28

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Thanks Mrs C.

My 14 year old has had today:

Breakfast (fruit, crumpets), Lunch (ham salad wrap x2), dinner (pie, mash and gravy).
Snacks: Fromage frais, tin of rice pud, mini breadsticks, bagel, fruit, peanuts, the list goes on....).

my 10 yr old is the same. They both swear blind that they are hungry.

If your sons - particularly the eldest is growing then he will need lots of calories to sustain and promote growth. Boys usually start muscle development at around 14 or so. He could need 3000+ calories a day.

We are bringing up our grandson who is 12 (end of August) and he is eating like a horse at the moment - he is actively growing - has grown 5 inches in the last year and gone up 2 shoe sizes.

Today he has eaten

breakfast - 2 boiled eggs and 2 slices of toast (sometimes he has 3 slices of toast) - glass of juice
snack - 250gms grapes and 4 crackers and a piece of cheese.
lunch - large ciabatta roll with chicken, mayo and salad. Smallish bar of chocolate
snack - apple, satsuma and nature valley bar
dinner - beef casserole with carrots, cabbage, peas, mash and yorkshire pudding.

If he's hungry before bed he will have either a peanut butter sandwich or a couple of slices of toast or a piece of plum bread. He eats a bigger meal than OH now....but our son did too and GS seems to be much the same in his eating habits....and don't ask what he's like after football or swimming.

I try and make sure every meal has some "starchy food", bread, potatoes, pasta, rice and some protein, meat, fish, eggs, beans etc plus veg with every meal and a piece or two of fruit. And some dairy. He doesn't drink milk (so breakfast cereal isn't an option) and isn't keen on yoghurts so it's usually a bit of cheese.

I find he is satisfied for longer after a dinner like we had today than almost anything else.

If your son says he's hungry then he probably is....I can usually tell with GS by what he wants....if he wants sweets, biscuits or crisps and turns his nose up at a sandwich then he isn't hungry.

carefullycautious

An extra bowl of breakfast cereal won't hurt growing boys or girls for that matter. They are usually at their hungriest when arriving home from school so a bowl of brekkie sufficed until tea was ready

rachel6188

My brother is now 21 but is 6ft 8. He eats tuna pasta and he says it makes him feel full for longer. He was in the RAF and I think it started before then, You have had some fab ideas and wish you luck, its expensive with bottomless pits xx

lessonlearned

Another mother of sons here, now 27 and 29. As boys and teenagers they were ravenous all the time.

The 29 year old doesn't eat as much as he used to - i.e. he eats more like a normal adult but the 27 year old still has hollow legs, but then he is 6'3". Neither has an an ounce of spare flesh.

When the youngest hit puberty at 14 he grew 6" in 6 months - he never stopped eating and still he looked like an advert for Oxfam.

I made it a golden rule that cakes, biscuits, crisps etc were not to be eaten as fillers. I explained to them that sweet stuff has no nutritional value and can cause havoc with insulin levels, especially if eaten on an empty stomach. All they do is give a sugar rush followed by an energy slump. I'm afraid I was very strict about this. Sweet things were only allowed as a pudding, after they had eaten dinner, the same with crisps and other salty snacks. Luckily they were both sporty and quite health conscious so they accepted my ruling quite happily. There was always a full fruit bowl if they were desperate!!!

So whenever they said they were hungry it would be sandwiches, with butter, protein fillings and a glass of full fat milk (for the Vit D content) or a smoothie or home made milkshake. Coke and other fizzy drinks were only for high days and holidays.

When they were teens they would come home from school absolutely "Hank Marvin" - love that advert - they would stoke up on plates of toast and cups of tea.

Week day mornings they would tuck into a huge bowl of porridge. Weekends they would have weetabix, go to football training and then tuck into a full English breakfast when they got back.

Most weekends and holidays would see them grazing all day - as well as the 3 full square meals they tucked into.

I honestly don't know where they put it all because they are both still slender.

I tried to ensure that they ate well but I agree their endless hunger did make it tricky on a tight budget. However, I think making them snack on real food rather than endless cakes and biscuits did help keep the costs down.

WantToBeSE

Thanks everyone for the replies, they have all been really helpful.

I am going to make their meals bigger too and see if that will help.

littlegreenparrot

I'm glad there are a few things you are going to try.

Am I right in thinking it is not the amount of food their eating, but what their eating thats a concern?

Where you listed a days 'typical' intake what stood out to me was relatively little for breakfast /lunch.

Will they eat porridge? It would probably fill them up more than crumpets. If not perhaps eggs/ham/peanut butter on toast as well as fruit/yoghurt.
Maybe a rice/pasta salad as well as a sandwich for lunch (soup would be ideal, but I know is difficult sometimes to take to school) Do you buy full fat milk/yoghurt? That can help people feel fuller for longer.

As kids we would scoff anything and everything that was available. Eventually mum wrote our names on plastic boxes and put in a weeks worth of crisps/biscuits/assorted goodies that were intended for our lunchboxes. If we had eaten all of that by Tuesday it was our own fault! At weekends no toast was allowed after 10:30, otherwise it would all just merge into lunch. Nothing else was rationed, it was just to try and get us to eat something more filling/nutritious.

Good luck! As is ever the way I'm sure whatever you do they will claim its awful and whinge!

WantToBeSE

Thanks littlegreenparrot (love the username btw!)

It's both what and how much they are eating, especially my 14 year old. He will eat everything and anything.

I gave him and extra big dinner tonight Pasta and sauce) and he ate it all and as of yet he hasn't said he is hungry (it's been 10mins since dinner, thats an improvement!).

Yes we all often have porridge with PB and a bit of sugar for berakfast. I do buy some full fat yoghurt for the kids, those muller corners and also rachels organic coconut yoghurt.

In regards to lunch- he takes dinner money to school (apparently its not cool to take a packed lunch at high school ). He says he has things like pizza, chips or a ham salad baguette etc.