To find the obsession with snacks weird

@Tipperttruck that is one big difference- this clubs thing- my son is now 26 but the only club thing was one after school activity a week ( like archery or something at secondary level) and cubs at primary level - same was true for me in the late 60s and early 70s - so it was usually dinner about 6.30 and my son might have had a banana or possibly a bit of malt loaf at 4.30 most days

Snacking does not speed up metabolism!
Snacking triggers insulin which encourages fat storage.

The snack culture took off in the 80s pushed by manufacturers. Prior to that a bottle of milk at school and homemade cake or biscuit after school was more usual. Now it’s all packaged crap!

Snacks are socially acceptable dummies for some .

Yep, we had little lunch, big lunch and then afternoon tea when we got home. Losing weight they recommend eating every couple of hours to speed up your metabolism. Because you've only just eaten, you're less likely to over eat at meal time.

I think it's the quality of snacks that are the issue. Fruit is good and healthy. You should have two serves of fruit a day. Apple plus fruit and yoghurt and you're done. Instead you see so much rubbish given as snacks.

Snacks have definitely always been a thing. We stopped for ice cream or sweets every day after school and this was in the 80s. Dh same era always went for penny sweets at the village shop after school, maybe not every day, but lots of days. That said, my dc don’t have food in the car right after school unless we’re on our way somewhere and it’s not really something I see at our school, but maybe because most people (not us) live in the village.

You survived because you had no choice. I'll bet plenty felt hungry but just had to deal with it until the next ''meal''.

Not how I'd want to raise my DC by choice.

If I lived 5 mins away or drove I wouldn’t bother either, but I don’t, our walk home is much longer, so I bring a snack.

Food was still on ration after the war when I was a child, no such things as snacks, barely enough for proper meals, Somehow we all survived, you rarely if ever saw an overweight child and I don't remember being hungry. We might have had an ice cream at the weekend, but that's as far as it went.

I don't like snacking but find the DC are only given about 10 mins at lunchtime to actually eat so they come out at the end of the day starving. We go straight to clubs most nights so they would be on the floor by 7pm if they didn't have a handful of nuts to keep them going

My 85 year old FIL has a bad snacking habit ( I think it's boredom to be honest) and consequently then wonders why he can only eat half of an evening meal at 7.15pm - well that's what happens when eating packets of cheddars and olives at 5.45 every day and cake mid afternoon -

The constant mention on here of snacks seems nuts to me - ( pun intended)

YANBU.

When I was a child there was breakfast at home, morning milk about 10.30 (?) dinner time then home time. Out of the entire class of 30 only 1 mum brought a snack at pick up.
We survived.

My dc ask for snacks out of boredom- depending on the time I sometimes say no if it's an hour or less to a mealtime, unless I know they've not eaten much then I would allow fruit.

It drives me potty when mums feed their toddlers non stop snacks then moan when the kids don't eat their meals!

My eldest is 10 and may have to force her to have a snack sometimes as she does a lot of sport and needs the fuel. To be honest she wouldn't eat meals if it was down to her, she doesn't ever seem to feel hungry.

My youngest is 7 and small for his age (height and weight) and is more of a grazer. He prefers to have smaller meals and snacks in between. His BMI teeters between ok and underweight so if he wants to eat we let him.

Snacks aren’t really a thing in my house. I try to make life as easy and flexible as possible and to me, they’re an unnecessary overhead that I avoid. If we are going out and about and don’t have clear plans for dinner/tea, I would take fruit/yoghurt/cereal bars just in case. And to be honest, I don’t see how there is time to fit in snacks between meals (DC is a toddler). I would either be giving it to close to the last meal, or too close to the next one 🤷🏻‍♀️

The best tip I ever heard was to give the kids whatever veg (plus/minus a protein) they were having for lunch and dinner as the morning and afternoon snacks. That way if they don’t eat as much at the main meal they’ve already had their veg, if they eat it all then they get double helping, there’s no need to think about another food source and it prevents being over hungry and cranky before meal times.

My 1 year old would get extremely grumpy between 7 and 12 and then 12 and 5 without a snack now milk is minimal in the day. They burn so much energy constantly it’s not really surprising I don’t think?

Little and often is a perfectly acceptable way to eat. For many, it's more natural and healthy than three big meals a day. Personally I think the idea that "three square meals a day and no snacks" is the only correct way to eat belongs in the past together with all that plate-clearing nonsense. It's the size and content of snacks and meals which is the issue, not necessarily their frequency.

This I remember queuing for the drinking fountain and only being allowed a quick sip because of the queue.
oh my god yes the queue for the water fountain!!!!!!!

Totally agree. Massive bags of snacks just for a morning out. I really don’t get it unless someone has diabetes etc. We would get something as kids if we had walked to the shop etc, and things like crisps were in cupboards but if you ate more than two packets it would have been commented on… no wonder so many people are obese now, setting in habits of constantly eating and tasks revolving around eating from an early age.

Well the Mumsnet I am on accuses anyone who isn’t a size 14 of ‘living off of lettuce leaves’, not having a real woman’s body, not being attractive to men who like ‘curves’ (MN speak for rolls of fat) and ‘competitive under-eating’ - funny how we all see it different isn’t it?

I usually give dd (almost 3) an afternoon snack as we like to have dinner with dh so can be at like 6ish.

Im all for snacks but I always find it shocking at playgroup the amount of mums filling their kids with packets of crisps/crackers, then when playgroup serve their snack fill the kids bowls so much there’s barely any left for the other children (no 2 year old needs 5 nice biscuits, half a banana, grapes and crackers for a snack, especially after a packet of crisps)

My kids are hungry all the time and get really low on energy if they don't have snacks. Both very slim.

This is what we do. A decent snack when they get home from school, then dinner at 7-7.30pm.

I lived in France in the 80s and the children there always had "gouter", a kind of snack meal at around 4pm. Then ate their dinner at around 7pm.

It’s common (most common I would say) for children to be natural grazers and not big meal eaters. I think it can be common to bring snacks to school because they are tired, depleted and often have not eaten very well at lunchtime since they are left to their own devices. There’s nothing wrong with eating small and frequently throughout the day if that’s what comes easiest.

Yanbu this is an issue when I'm taking my kids out for the day or an activity with other families