My son and his friends eat just enormous amounts of food. A usual breakfast for him is 6 eggs, 1/2 lb of bacon, couple pieces of toast, couple glasses of milk. He's 6'5 and weighs all of 175 lbs. He's like a human trash compactor, too - big bags of chips, half gallons of OJ, whole bags of cookies, an entire pizza just disappear in a single setting. Then some days, he'll eat almost nothing. So I guess somehow, maybe, it balances out?

That certainly explains a lot. My son's not overweight, just constantly "starving"!

My mom and dad used to call me the human garbage disposal. LOL

They did a study on this? I have 2 boys. My oldest is 10 stretched to 5'6 and 120 lb. He was 5 feet even last year and 120. His shorts from last year are too big and baggy. He eats like a horse. I can't believe my grocery bill as it is. It is going to get worse? Ha Ha Ha. He eats his 3 meals (healthy)...like half a bag of chips...other stuff..and a snack at night consisting of a big bowl of fruit and a bowl of cereal or toast. I can't keep yogurt in the house and I buy like 20 a week. People just look at my grocery cart in the store. Every week it is jam packed full of healthier foods. I am a very valued customer at Krogers.

My son actually participated in this study at NIH, and he couldn't get over the fact that they paid him as a participant to go in and eat all he wanted! Telling a 16 year old boy to go to an all you can eat buffet, load up on whatever you want, AND you'll get paid to do it? That's a dream come true!

I could have told you what the results of this study would be without any of this testing, as could any parent of a teenage boy. I guess my question is why did we need to do this study? While my son was happy to get the cash, I really don't see this as a good use of our taxpayer dollars, to tell us something that we already know.

if they had asked me, i would have told them - this is the case - and it would not have cost the tax payer a dime for this nonsense.

An actual study was needed to clarify this? - people find more ways to waste time and money.

kay 1583076: what are you doing on Newsvine??? Its a waste time and you could be working & making money!!

Now, if they can follow these boys into college and beyond, help prevent that dorm food weight gain and that middle-aged spread that so many men seem to get. I know lots of guys who were skinny at the start of college, dangerously pudgy now as the fathers of college-aged kids. At a high school grad party last weekend, some boys showed up who had just finished their freshman year, already several sizes larger than they were last year. My own adult son discovered a taste for healthy food, so he has avoided any excessive weight gain--and he is not a drinker, either, so no empty alcohol calories.

Overall, the researchers found, boys ate more than girls.

They haven't seen my 14 year old daughter eat! She can and usually does eat more then her 200 lb. power lifter dad. She has a huge dinner and 20 minutes later is starving. Yet she's so skinny I have a had time finding jeans that fit her. Her 11 year old sister is just starting to eat like that and my grocery bill is ridiculous already. I was the same way at her age. Ah, the good old days before the rotten adult metabolism sets in.

My fifteen year old had his yearly physical last October and was 5'4" and weighed 112 lbs. We recently took him to the dermatologist for an acne issue and he is now 5'9" and weighs 133 lbs. When he is off to summer camp our food expenditure is cut in half and the rest of us eat better. I hope the voraciousness does not point itself to girls.

I love the implication in this that this is way more calories than any child, even an active one could need in puberty. Every person burns calories differently and they burn calories differently at different stages of their lives. There's a ton of development and growth at this stage in life. Obviously by my name, I'm female; but I ate a a large chocolate milk shake and a french fry for lunch everyday between the ages of 14 and 17. That's in addition to all the other garbage I ate the rest of the day. (And my mother is from France, so no meal was ever a low calorie meal.) I didn't exercise orparticipate in sports. I was 5' 5" and 97 pounds. Obviously I needed all those calories. Now in my 30 somethings I'm very active, but if I take in more than 1200 calories a day I start to gain weight. I've been that way since my mid 20's. The only exception is during pregnancy when I need about 5000 calories a day to gain the correct amount of weight. (I've been pregnant enough to have it down to science.) However this "scientific" study again slaps this one size fits all idea that all teens need about 2000 calories a day. A better study would have to fed these kids and have conducted a GEM test on them to see what their base metabolisms were.

It's easy to explain; they lose 2500 calories a day, wanking!

Apparently we need studies for everything now... you mean to tell me that teenage boys eat a lot? And then tend to eat more than teenage girls?! No way!

I took a foods class in high school. One of our assignments was to calculate our caloric intake per day. Playing basketball through junior high and high school and running cross country, working part time mowing lawns and working around our ranch, ten to twelve thousand calories a day was average. Never was heavy either, 6'5", 185 lbs.

And this is NEWS? Mothers of teen-aged boys have known this for YEARS! I always said we should of had an additional income tax exemption when boy hit their teen yrs. just for their appetites. I watched a cousin eat an entire chocolate cake at one time & HE, LIKE MY BOYS, WAS NOT EVEN OVERWT.

WHERE DOES IT ALL GO? HOLLOW LEGS?

Finally an explanation to our rapidly declining food in the house. If we go and spend a lot at Costco, it's usually gone within a couple of weeks. Unbelievable. I use to be able to cook a big pot of spaghetti or clam linquini and have plenty left over but no longer. Steak fajitas are not on a list of leftovers. It can be really distressing for people living paycheck to paycheck. And summer is coming up so he'll be at home all the time. Uuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhh.

Teens still need to be learning HOW to eat healthfully so they can satisfy their appetites while also providing their growing bodies with the correct nutrients.

They will not typically be able to eat this way in their 20's and beyond, so they need to be exposed to foods with low calorie densities (low in fat) and low calorie / low sugar beverages.

One way to help them is to focus on naturally colorful foods - and less of the brown/white group.

This could be my son - still just 10 yrs old. Tell us something we don't know!

Teenage boys; given the chance, will consume 2000 calories for lunch. Teenage GIRLS; given the chance, will VOMIT 2000 calories after lunch.

What does that say about societal perspective?

Justify this study? I don't think so. When people are dying across the country and around the World of diseases that are underfunded for research it saddens me to see such a waste of resources. I see only funding for research that will mean bazillions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies--not for cures but instead for management. What would be the point in these companies finding a cure for their cash-cows?

Incentive to find cures are lacking in the US research practices and policies. There is also the complicite behavior of the FDA which rejects one treatment after another based upon industry recommendations even though a treatment may have been approved and proven to be very effective in Europe.

Even "charitable" organizations would ultimately loose should cures be found. From huge executive compensation packages to entire organizations that are set up because people are dying. Something has to change!

They had to spend money on a study to figure this out? Talk about waste.