To find the obsession with snacks weird

I was never brought up to constantly snack. We were allowed to have something when we got home from school but that was it.

My school rules actually forbade eating in the streets in school uniform and if you were caught it was an order mark or detention for repeat offenders!

I brought my own children up much the same. Snacks definitely not the norm.

We live 7 minutes walk from school so I resisted bringing snacks… but my kid doesn’t always eat enough lunch and is easier to get home if she has a tiny boost. The biggest issue is that when I’m the parent who doesn’t bring snacks her friends’ parents take pity on her and she ends up eating everyone else’s and I feel guilty :(

Yeah this. I'm hoping we can move away from this when they go to school, I had never heard of "morning snack" before my kids went to nursery. Or afternoon snack + tea in the middle of the afternoon!

(Edit: I'm not British though)

I agree. I'm sure it's related to the obesity crisis.

It's also really difficult for dc with food allergies. Food is present everywhere all the bloody time.

And the walking round while eating! Urgh!

@Biffbaff may I ask how your occupy your toddler at mum and baby fitness classes? I would argue that actually an hour is quite a long time to contain a toddler and alongside colouring and stickers, a snack box of bread sticks and fruit allows me to actually get a workout done!

I take a small something, as we a long walk home, but not if we take the bus, which takes 20 mins.
I think taking snacks for a 5 min walk would be ridiculous, but I rarely notice what other parents and their children are doing, never mind what they're feeding them.
🤷🏼‍♀️

School tell us to bring something for the little ones right after school. It's like when breastfeeding, little and often because they don't naturally overeat to fuel up for later. KS2 they suddenly start being able to wait.

My memories of the 1980s involved being thirsty and hungry a lot.

A healthy snack after school always really helped DS when he was little. It's a long time between 12 o'clock lunch and a 6 o'clock dinner.

I'm a snacker, I have snacks at 11am, 2pm, 4pm and usually some time before bed if I've eaten early (before 8, which is early for me, Southern European habits).
I give my child similarly timed snacks, though it's always healthy stuff for both of us - a variety of fruit, yoghurt, raisins, nuts, oat cakes, rice cakes etc.
The whole family are slim, we just seem to burn off calories quickly and get hungry often. I don't understand those who say they don't snack, say you have your breakfast at 7, lunch at 12 and dinner at 6, that's a gap of 4 and 6 hours between meals, wouldn't you be starving? Unless you've eaten a huge amount of food at each meal, which is actually not good for you, it's healthier to eat moderate quantities often.

We have a 15 minute walk home from school and more often than not DD2 will ask for a snack. She didn’t when she was on packed lunches but now she’s on school dinners she seems to need one. I think the school dinners are a fairly small size, if she has the sandwich option it’s literally a sandwich, bit of salad and the pudding, whereas the packed lunch would have had fruit and yogurt as well. Plus she’s in reception and they eat at 11:30. It probably wouldn’t be necessary if they had their fruit and milk snack in the afternoon but they have that at 10, which seems daft with lunch so soon after and then nearly 4 hours until the end of the day. DD1 has packed lunches and never needs one.

I always carry snacks and water because otherwise the kids get hungry and I have to buy food when we're out. All healthy, slim, active kids.

And snacks have always 'been a thing.' They were a thing when I was young, and they were a thing when my parents were young, according to my grandparents. Kids get hungry; this is not a modern phenomenon.

It's recommended for growing children to eat snacks as well as meals. Even if the child lives 5 minutes away from home, does it really matter if they have their snack on the walk home or when they get home? Maybe they are going straight to an after school activity etc as well.

Mine is only 2 and wouldn't manage without snacks. He even has a light dinner at nursery and then dinner with us at home too.

Many children may not have eaten much at lunch/ all day at school. When I pick up my reception aged DC, she is barely holding it together and basically goes into a hangry meltdown. I give her an oatcake in the car which is a 5 minute drive. She would be beyond reason by the time we got home if I didn’t. She’s only 4 so it’s not unreasonable in my opinion.

Although adults are as bad, carrying takeaway coffees with them everywhere. This never used to be a thing either.

And it's usually expensive packaged food rather than a cheap banana or apple.

I think some parents give snacks to occupy the kids as well.

Snacks have always been a thing. I'm a 70s baby and we always had:

Breakfast
Playtime - milk and snack
Lunch
After school snack
Dinner
Supper

Agree, I live 5 min from school , some parents lived even nearer, but always had a snack to give kids on coming out of school. The school had a strict no nuts policy but one mum (who also lived 5 min away - the catchment area was tiny so no one lived more than about half a mile away ) used to bring Nutella snacks to give her DC the moment they got out of the classroom.

Although I'm somewhere in between. There are lots on MN who proclaim to do a 6 hour car journey with young kids, and no one needs any snacks, drinks or wees!

I'm underweight and get hungry between meals so I definitely have a couple of snacks everyday! We all have different appetites. My toddler also needs a snack between lunch and dinner.

I can be remember being ferociously, miserably thirsty as a kid, especially at school and in very warm weather. It's proven that access to clean drinking water on demand improves both behaviour and educational outcomes. Not all progress is something to be sneered at for the sake of it 🙄

Yep I do actually slightly judge other mums who keep supplying their baby/accompanying preschooler with snacks during buggyfit/mum and baby pilates or whatever. It's an hour. Do it before or after. And tbh I couldn't be doing with prepping them or carrying around the little lunch bag either.

I carry snacks but my kids type one diabetic, so if I don't have snacks it can be life threatening.
Obviously this isn't the case with everyone.

To be fair, I have lunch at work at 1. I'll then often snack on a piece of fruit around 3:45-4 ish if I'm slightly peckish.

Yep. It always surprises me. We only have three meals a day. That's the way we were raised and it works for us. The other day, DC was at a playdate and was given a snack at 11.30. Of course she wasn't hungry for lunch.

In a generation possibly 2 as my parents were much older when they had me the attitude to snacking has changed completely. It was three meals a day and that was it, maybe a biscuit with tea at 4pm after school sometimes and that meant 2 just small regular size biscuits.

Now adult's are going on about fasting. I mean if you eat dinner at 6pm and then have breakfast at 8am, that’s just what we did as kids.

I agree that in general everyone is eating too many snack foods.

having said that, my dd used to have something to eat as soon as she came out of school because she ate very little at school and was absolutely starving.