Mom discovers teenager's 'secret' food, puts son on EXTREME diet. AITA?

When this mom tells her son that his eating is out of control, she asks the internet:

'AITA for telling my son he's on a diet after he ate three packs of donuts?'

Diabetes runs in my family. My mom died from complications from it, my oldest daughter (29F) has it, two of my brothers have it. It also runs in my husband's family – both his parents had it.

As a result I've decided to keep my house relatively sugar free. While my older kids can do what they please, my minor children get an “allowance” so to speak of one processed sugar food a month. Aside from that they can have fruits to get their sweet tooth sated.

How much fruit, and other foods besides sweets, is up to them. The only dietary restriction is on processed sugary foods. I don't even keep that stuff in my house.

Unfortunately me and my sister work with the local food drive so sometimes we have care packages come to our homes so we can give them to the homeless, the church, etc.

My 14-year-old son got into one of these care packages really early yesterday morning without my knowledge, I took it out later that day without even noticing stuff was missing (the boxes usually come opened already and from a quick glance it looked normal).

But when I checked on him in his room he'd fallen asleep and I saw the donut boxes on his bed. Now these donuts are like knock-off Entenmann's, 8 in a pack, each one weighs about 15 oz to a pound. This greedy little guy ate 24 donuts!! I woke him up and demanded an explanation.

He admitted he regularly peeks inside the care packages and couldn't resist this (it's true that the care packages usually have much blander foods). I told him well since he couldn't resist guess who's going on a diet?

He protested that it was just one bad moment and he's not even fat, blah blah blah. He's right, he's a thin kid, but he was really bloated after all those donuts so I just pointed at his gut and said I rest my case.

Yeah, it was insensitive maybe but I don't know what he expected after eating that many donuts knowing the diabetes situation. It's not even about weight, I wouldn't have cared if he'd overindulged on something healthy, but this ain't it.

He's salty now because he's on a diet and his siblings aren't. But he knows he messed up, and these are the mild consequences. It's not even going to be forever, just for a week or two so he learns his lesson. I think that's reasonable, but of course he doesn't, so we've been feuding.

AITA here? I do want my son to be happy but I also have to remember I'm his parent, not his friend, and part of parenting involves doing things he may not like at the minute for his overall good.

Let's see what readers had to say. They were torn!

purrcu writes:

NTA. People in this sub have damn double standards. You ARE responsible for what your kids are eating. Good habits are the best gift you give them, even though I'd also tend to think that 100% forbidding something is counter productive.

rainca writes:

NTA. From my experience, kids who grow up eating natural sweets with restricted processed sugar intake tend to not to have lower tolerances to sweetness as adults, meaning they’re satisfied with a lower level of sweetness.

That’s why non Americans who go to America always complain about American desserts being too sweet. You’re not putting your son on a permanent diet. Just teaching him that overindulging has consequences. I would also focus on how what he’s doing is taking away food from the needy.

Don’t worry about the other commenters. Many are probably salty thinking of their own diets. Too many kids are obese these days, but the moment a parent restricts food they cry abuse and eating disorder.

dismg completely disagrees:

YTA. You sound as if you're fixated on food intake, weight, and health... and not in a good way. Did you know eating disorders aren't just someone whose bulimic, anorexic, or who suffer from binge eating disorder.

There is also Orthorexia Nervosa (aka just Orthorexia) which is an unhealthy obsession on eating a healthy or balanced diet which often leads to overly restrictive approache, which can lead to malnutrition.

I am not saying you suffer from it but it sounds very similar. Forcing your child into a diet as a punishment for an event, and not something he is doing of his own accord, is basically fat/diet shaming him.

Infact, his habit of sneaking to find more food might be an indicator you are not giving him enough caloric intake based on his youth and size. Diets only work if someone willingly enters into it. Using food as a weapon of punishment is an a hole move in my opinion.