🥊 💁🏾‍♀️Mom Wins: Dinner Edition 🍕 #Teens

Let’s set the scene: two teens (my Son and his BFF) fresh from the Amusement Park Kings Island ready for dinner…..… 😯. Does that ever sound like your household? Whelp, in anticipation of this dilemma I used my bullet journal 📓 to make a plan.

Here’s what I know about Gen alpha teens:

• ➕ They want choice
• 💨 They want fast
• 🏡 They want structure (but won’t admit it)
• ☎️ They’re not great at communicating their needs

Did I get them right?

Grocery 🛒 prices + desire for nutritious foods 🥬+ busy family weekend 🙋🏾‍♂️ = reach for the meal plan!

In past years, I would’ve ordered take-out 🥡 and called it a night. But remember, I’m in my healthy eating Era ☺️ so I wanted to solve this dilemma! Figuring this out now will help tremendously when school year activities kick up. I’m also super conscious right now of making sure my teen doesn’t inherit poor eating habits. We consciously, or unconsciously pass down our nutrition habits to children. This is called transgenerational nutrition. It’s essentially how one generation influences the health and nutrition of the next. Believe it or not it starts in pregnancy!

**BTW I get excellent meal ideas and tips from a podcast called The Kitchen Prescription. Really enjoy her series.

⚠️ Warning Signs… Teens and Prediabetes

According to the American Diabetes Association before people develop Diabetes, they almost always have prediabetes. You can think of prediabetes as an early warning sign for diabetes. It happens when blood glucose (blood sugar) levels are higher than normal, but they aren’t yet high enough to be diabetes. Any effort to prevent or delay diabetes is important since diabetes can lead to serious health issues such as heart disease, stroke, nerve damage, eye disease, and kidney disease.

New research shows prediabetes is on the rise and, although there are steps people can take to try to avoid or delay developing full-blown diabetes, many people aren’t heeding the warning.

One report in JAMA Pediatrics found that nearly one in three adolescents and teens has prediabetes and the rate among 12 to 19 year-olds more than doubled between 1999–2002 and 2015–2018, jumping from 12 percent to 28 percent. The study also showed that youth who live in poverty were more likely to have prediabetes.

5 Ways to Help Teens Combat Prediabetes

Helping teens reverse or prevent the progression of prediabetes involves a mix of lifestyle changes, supportive environments, and education. Here are practical, evidence-based strategies that can make a big difference:

✅ 1. Focus on Daily Movement (Not Just Exercise)

• Encourage at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, even broken into short bursts (like walking, biking, dancing, or sports).
• Reduce sedentary time: limit screen time (outside of schoolwork) to less than 2 hours a day.

Tip: Make it social—our family sometimes attends our local YMCA together. My husband does weights, I go to Zumba class, and my teen shoots baskets in the gym.

🥗 2. Revamp Eating Habits Gradually

• Prioritize whole, minimally processed foods: fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and healthy fats.
• Reduce sugary drinks and snacks (even juice can spike blood sugar).
• Teach portion awareness—not restriction—and how to build balanced meals.

Easy swaps:

• Water or unsweetened tea instead of soda
• Popcorn or fruit instead of chips or candy

🛌 3. Support Good Sleep Hygiene

• Teens need 8–10 hours of sleep nightly.
• Inadequate sleep can disrupt insulin sensitivity and increase cravings.

Helpful habits:

• No screens 30–60 mins before bed
• A consistent bedtime and wake-up schedule, even on weekends

🧠 4. Address Stress and Mental Health

• Chronic stress can impact blood sugar levels.
• Teach mindfulness, journaling, breathing techniques, or introduce counseling if needed.

Note: Emotional eating is common in teens—creating a safe space to talk can reduce this behavior.

👨‍👩‍👧 5. Involve the Whole Family

• Teens do better when the entire household participates in health changes.
• Avoid singling them out; instead, focus on making the home environment more supportive for everyone.

🧪 6. Schedule Regular Check-Ins

• Follow up with a healthcare provider for A1C checks, nutrition advice, or referrals to diabetes prevention programs.
• A pediatric dietitian or diabetes educator can help create a customized plan.

🔄 Progress, Not Perfection

🍕Homemade Pizza Night

➡️ Enter my go-to App for solutions Pinterest! I get so many recipes and ideas from there!! I started with topping ideas:

Here are some topping ideas we used:

Pro tip** I like to prep my veggies in the morning before the day gets going. It saves a ton of time.

Next up was selecting the right pizza crust. There are many, many to choose from and my inclination was to find a whole wheat crust. However, I couldn’t find one I thought the teens would like. So I chose a highly rated crust that only needed 10 min on 475 degrees over time! What a winner!

❤️ Outcome: Happy teens that were able to make their own pizzas (with at least one veggie 😋) AND hang out while doing so. Also, with extra toppings I was able to recycle some items for egg bakes at breakfast, leftover pizzas for lunch, and salad toppings at dinner. How much more of win could this be!

I hope this gives you a dinner option for the teens in your life. We’ll be having this one on the meal plan at least monthly!

In peace,

J

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If you choose to continue this journey with the book, I highly encourage you to mark it up! Don’t treat it so precious, that you don’t take advantage of the tools and bookmarks. They were very intentionally created for you to use direct. 

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