My 85 year old mother has the appetite of a teenage boy. Has anyone had this experience?

Be grateful that she is eating because there will come a time when she will refuse to eat and/or starts pocketing her food, but will not swallow it.

Mothers-in-law may resent the DIL's who took their sons' time and attention away from them.

Since my dad's been in AL, his appetite is just like your mothers. I just thought he liked the food!

Eating junk food stimulates a craving for more junk food. Poor quality food creates spikes and dips in digestive hormones that make cravings worse.
If your mother could eat all she wanted of only high quality, well-balanced foods, her eating behavior might be less extreme.

Imho, since she is consuming food teethless, that may pose a choking hazard. Also, all that consumption of food has to be hard on her gastrointestinal tract.

It wouldn't surprise me that dementia was behind her "appetite" at all. Some have mentioned checking medications, but my mother never took anything other than her usual BP meds (same stuff for decades) and antibiotics a few times for UTI. Only once during UTI induced sun-downing did she take anti-anxiety, and then only until UTI was cleared, less than a week. It could be what part of the brain is affected, could be the body no longer signals it's full, could be a need to chew on things, who knows?

My mother wasn't prone to over eating really - her downfall was the ice cream bars for dessert - gained 20#s she did NOT need. However, there were times when she would eat more than usual. The staff told me how she'd eaten breakfast, and apparently someone else was eating a later breakfast (they didn't force people to get up or eat during the "usual" times), so mom insisted SHE had to have breakfast. When they told her she already ate, she said nope and she got a second breakfast! So, it does happen.

Since you also say your mom has diabetes and is overweight, try to leave out snacks that might be less unhealthy. Would she eat carrots, celery with PB, cut up fruit? Of course she can still have a "treat" occasionally, but if you can get her to scarf down raw veggies and the like, it could satisfy her need to munch, but not impact her health as much. Sure, all 3 conditions will shorten her life, but why compound it with unhealthy stuff if you can get her to snack on better stuff between meals?

I was part of a support group for FTD and there was a mom who help take care of her daughter during the week when the daughter's husband went to work. The daughter was in her early 40s at the time with little kids. The daughter would eat non stop to the point they had to lock the food up. When they would go to a family get together for the holidays ect the family would do things in stages. Food was not put out until after the daughter left who's ever house they were at. From the responses made here it sounds like this is more common then we are aware of. Try to have health items for your mom to snack on.

The part of her brain that tells her " stomach full" is not working well. Meanwhile the part of her brain that encourages her to eat is working without any brakes.

Also, the part of her brain that deals with impulse control is not working correctly. Her caregiver will need to be the one to help her control her impulses.

Let her neurologist know about these new symptoms - it could be worsening disease or a new issue.

Also, do your best to help your mother with her meals: put food on everybody's plate and make sure pans and bowls of food stay off the dining room table. If she is prone to helping herself to snacks, you may need to lock those up as well.

check the side effects of the medications she is on. Think back & get a 'big picture' of when the overeating began. Im assuming it began when certain medications were started. Drugs given for dementia have a detrimental effect on the complete functioning of the brain.. Hunger and satiety are regulated by the brain. Additionally, cravings are a sign of nutritional deficiencies. If you give her fresh made carrot or carrot celery & green apple juice 1 pint or more daily. Alfalfa Tabs/caps 4 with each meal will provide much needed minerals & enzymes..including calcium. Alfalfa is arabic...it means "the great Father" in this case of All foods due to its richness on all elements necessary for life & health These suggestions are not 'instead of' they are in addition to healthy meals. If possible a daily walk would be very beneficial...for Mother, and for you also.

My husband has vascular dementia and eats constantly—mostly cereal and bananas.

Certain dementia medications have increased appetite as a side effect. Check her meds.

Has she had her thyroid checked? I recently started being hungry all the time, an hour after a meal I’d be hungry again, getting up at night to eat again. My dr did blood tests and found that I have developed hyperthyroidism, an over active thyroid that has kicked my metabolism into hyperdrive.

Maybe she is eating out of boredom.

My step mom went through something similar. She had lost weight a few years ago but put in all back on plus more. She had mixed dementia- vascular and alzheimer's. She also had type 2 Diabetes. She LOVED junk food and sweets. We didn't know how bad she and my dad were or that they even had dementia as they lived 3 1/2 hours away. They both mostly forgot how to cook and were living on pizza and chips. We got them into AL. Eventually she did stop eating. I was buying Ensure for her but that stopped too. She passed last September. My dad has alzheimer's and also keeps gaining weight but he's slowing down a bit now...maybe just a phase? (hoping it's not a sign of things to come w/my dad) Anyway, I believe it is from the dementia. My stepmom's doctor took her off her Seroquel to see if that would help her lose weight and it was an absolute nightmare!! Got her back on it asap!

My mother, with advanced dementia went through a stage where she ate a lot and put on a lot of weight. Then that stage passed and she could only eat soft foods and she has to be fed. She's in a memory care facility where they prepare all of her meals for her. When this happened, she lost all of the weight she had gained and more. She survived through the pandemic weighing about 90 lbs. What if you only put out a certain amount of food that has the right portion sizes? If she didn't see more food could she stop there? It's probably best to give her the kinds of food she likes, if that's all she will eat.

Could it be her medication? Hospice put my mother on a very powerful steroid that made her crave junk food (and only junk food) constantly. She was thin her entire life and never really cared about food or ate much, until now.

Last time we took my 94 y/o mother out to eat, she ate 1/2 a pizza, 1/2 a loaf of garlic bread, a full order of fettucini alfredo, a side salad and a tiramisu dessert. I kid you not. She has the appetite of a truck driver and always has. She spent her life on a diet, and micromanaging what she and everyone else ate, and in her old age, threw all caution to the wind & now eats everything that isn't nailed down. If she had a hammer in her room at the Memory Care, she'd probably use the back end of it to pry off food that WAS nailed down so she could eat IT, too. The food she can pack away in one sitting is mind boggling. She's pushing 200 lbs now and also has dementia, which hasn't touched her appetite at all. The only thing it's done is to make her complain non-stop about how 'horrrrrribleeeeeee' the food is at the Memory Care ALF, yet she's constantly eating it and gaining weight on a regular basis. Go figure.

With dementia, there IS no 'normal' anymore. So just ignore what your mother is doing and let her be, that's my suggestion. Why try to prolong her life, at 85 with dementia? Even with diabetes and obesity at play, she's better off living life on her terms than living longer with restrictions in force and with the misery of worsening dementia at play, in my opinion. If I get dx'ed with dementia, there is no way I'm doing ANYTHING to prolong my life!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does it really matter at this point? You donot say that there is an obesity problem (which could lead to type II diabetes and etc. Let her eat as she pleases would get my vote. However, you are correct. She is more on the rare side of things as this usually goes.

My 99-yr old aunt went through a phase in her dementia where she ate like a horse. Jaw-dropping. Thankfully she was always thin. We believe she didn't remember that she just ate plus dementia messes with all your body systems so that maybe your mom no longer interprets her body signals correctly (like satiation, hunger). But it is a phase. Now she eats "normal" amounts of food (yet probably still more than the average 99-yr old). She is in a phase now where she wants the same dinner every single night (Campbell's Chicken and Rice soup with an egg cooked in it) and she just lauds it every single night. Then when I stayed with her for a visit and was cooking, she wanted what we were eating. Her sister (my other aunt) said, "She'll never eat that" but guess what, she did and now eats it as long as she gets to choose it herself. I'm sure this phase won't last either but who knows when it will change. She is missing 50% of her teeth. If you are feeding your mom then you can control what and how much she eats. You don't have to give it to her just because she insists. Maybe try to find foods that take longer to eat, like Peanut butter, or cut her food into smaller pieces. Good luck with this adventure!

That is an unusual problem for sure, as most elderly folks don't typically eat that much. Things that make you go hmmm.......
I guess just be grateful that she still has a good appetite, and seems to enjoy eating, and the fact that it's mostly "junk" food is ok too, as someone with vascular dementia's life expectancy is not long, so let her enjoy it while she can. Best wishes.