The constant feeding / snacking of children

Same here. We walked or cycled everywhere and played out after school. I loved our tuck shop. There were no healthy options at all. Just penny mixtures and empire biscuits.

My 2 year old loves snacks, and will also eat her main meals very happily, often having second portions. She’d be so hangry if we didn’t do snacks as well. She loves veggies, will eat most foods (more then a lot of adults I know) including boiled eggs, fish, curries, pastas, chicken from the bone etc. she just has a big appetite, so will also have 4 or 5 snacks during the day as well. Usually things like a yoghurt, fruit, some cheese, a pita bread and hummus, Wheatabix maybe. She’s in the bottom 25% for weight for her age so god knows where she puts it! Like having a teenage boy in the house with the amount she eats

I actually agree with the OP and keep snacks to a minimum, something like an apple or a cracker and hummus once or twice a day if she asks. But ironically I found myself being loudly judged on the train the other day. Nearly at the end of a two hour very crowded train journey it was nearly lunchtime and my toddler got hungry and cross. I somehow managed to wrestle a box of emergency breadsticks out of my bag and put it on the table, toddler swiftly grabbed two and started devouring. Seconds later I heard tutting from a neighbouring table about children today being allowed to just eat and eat all day 😂 For content this was nearly 5 hours since breakfast. A good warning for me not to judge by what I see on one occasion!

My toddler is on a low centile for her weight so definitely needs to snack. And before you say it no she doesn't eat more at meal times if she doesn't snack.
My BMI is in the underweight category and I always have 3 meals and at least 2 snacks a day.
Food eaten at snack time is no worse than if it's eaten at a meal time. Some people just like to feel superior...

Kids get really hungry after school. If they're at a 4pm swimming lesson, then thry probably haven't had dinner, no.

I think a lot of the smug posters still have quite little children. It can all change.

I was very strict about screen time (zero screen time before age 2, very very limited after that, focus on getting outside and doing wholesome activities) and also food (did blw, organic meals cooked from scratch, only set snacks of fruit or veg, no junk). He’s now a beige-food loving, fast food obsessed teenage boy who won’t touch vegetables, snacks all day and is utterly addicted to his smartphone.

I rarely see kids snacking in prams/public transport etc as there noses are glued to devices

Giving kids junk to munch on is an easy way of keeping them quiet and in one place. It's right up there with sticking them in front of a tablet in terms of lazy parenting.

It's not surprising that one in five 10 year olds in the UK are obese.

Lazy parenting. The food equivalent of sticking kids in front of an ipad.

Ludicrous to judge snack intake based on one interaction. The pool children might’ve come straight from school not having previously eaten since lunch, and the toddlers in prams might be having something light in between meals.

My DS eats everything, was never given toddler snacks eg vegetable crisps, puffs or rice cakes, but there’s no harm in cutting up a pear or giving them a yoghurt. It never affected his meals or milk intake, and given how much they run around most of them need it.

And he’s now a v skinny 7 year old.

It’s not light snacks driving obesity most of the time - it’s parents not cooking healthy meals and letting their DC eat chicken and chips from takeaways and only giving them processed dinners.

Hmm this post made me feel terrible because I've started allowing my toddler snacks but then I read OP's update and felt better! Mine also has two snacks a day at scheduled times. I started it after he'd been at nursery a while (part time) and was getting used to that routine. Usually a mini meal where I try to make sure there's three of either protein, fat, carb, fruit/veg present such as a homemade flapjack, though recently I've been letting him have bits of Kallo rice cake and think that's fine! Mine will happily have mixed veg as a snack. Eats 3 good meals a day and still breastfeeding too.

Now I'm starting to gently wean him, I am leaning more on little snacks and some water where he might have had a feed instead, so a bite of rice cake. Usually I'm strict with the feeding schedule though. He's never been given sugar and only the occasional processed food eg veg spring roll, some of a veggie burger if I was eating one, Grandma does a potato smiley once a week (but everyone on here told me to unclench re other people feeding him). I think kids' appetites are just different! My nephew can't have any snacks or he won't eat a bite of his next meal and he's very fussy with food anyway. DS will happily eat all sorts of fish, olives, celery, plantain, pretty good with spice.

But I agree OP kids don't need to be loaded with sugar and crisps daily. I also think letting or encouraging kids to become obese is neglect. Mine is only little but very active as are me and DH and we'll make sure he's doing enough physical activity as well as eating a balanced diet.

I echo others on here that 30 years ago when I was at primary school a standard packed lunch was a sandwich consisting of cheap white sliced bread and billy bear ‘ham’, a packet of crisps and a penguin biscuit bar. Standards seem much higher nowadays. School canteen food wasn’t much better (turkey twizzlers etc) I think standards are higher now!

The children that you saw by the pool.. it might be their only treat of the week. So I would withhold judgement about people you don’t know. And no, I don’t think kids should be eating too much junk food but I don’t judge strangers for feeding their kids snacks because I don’t know what’s going on with their diet for the rest of the time. I feed my daughter ice cream and doughnuts sometimes, but she also receives healthy snacks on a daily basis.

@APC303 She measured her blood glucose level with a glucometer and saw that it spiked after those things. Nuts or cheese would absolutely be healthier. I'm not perfect though and we have a combination of healthy and unhealthy snacks in our house. I do agree that snack culture is difficult to challenge and 3 main meals would be better. Even less would be better for adults actually. But in reality, this is very difficult for everyone to achieve due to the nature of people's lives nowadays and many people struggling to find the time.

Oh bore off you judgemental battleaxe! Zzzzzz

Overweight is associated with early puberty in boys and girls
https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(21)00018-4/fulltext
(Journal of Pediatrics)

It has been clear that overweight and obesity in childhood is associated with onset of puberty at a younger age in girls. For boys, this has been less clear and study results have been variable. One issue is that defining onset of puberty may be more difficult in boys compared with girls. In this volume of The Journal, Chen et al used data from the Boston Birth Cohort Study to evaluate this question. They used age at peak height velocity as a marker of puberty. They found that overweight or obesity from age 2-7 years is associated with earlier onset of puberty in boys as well as in girls. However, those with overweight or obesity at age 2-4 years who became normal weight at age 5-7 had normal timing of puberty. This suggests that interventions to achieve normal weight from age 5-6 years could impact timing of puberty and avoid the deleterious impact of early onset of puberty.

@Lordofthebantams My kids would drive you insane then! My 2 youngest are always snacking. Constantly. And yes they eat the meals and fruit and veggies too. And no they aren’t overweight. My eldest you would love. He doesn’t snack, hardly ever. He also doesn’t eat veggies or barely any fruit… I think we need to consider that we don’t know what’s going on with people or their children and we are all out here doing the best we can.

When I was a kid and your mum took you to the park - we took the house key and my brothers inhaler just in case.

now a days - you need to pack 50 million snacks, 3 water bottles and a bucket of sun cream to survive 30 minutes at the park on a damp Tuesday morning!

I honestly don’t think kids need feeding every 20 seconds and believe it or not they can wait until they get home to have a drink.

they will not shrivel up and die without 24/7 access to a water bottle!

Spiking is bollocks.

You say it was complaining. I am suggesting the child was stating a fact, which was tactless, but not intentionally rude. It would have been better to say nothing then look at his parents’ menu of course. But calling him a rude snob for stating a preference is going too far in my opinion.

The food on kids’ menus often has much less variety than on the main menu.

edited for a typo

Is it okay for skinny children to snack? I give my children snacks at home or sometimes at the park after school, but they are all skinnier than other kids. Would you look down upon that as much? I also snack and I’m skinnier than most mums.

It's so sad, and it's shocking how many overweight children you see out and about. YANBU

I think this is child dependent.
My 6 year old is fab with portion control. She wouldn’t ask for a snack unless she were actually hungry. You could give her a massive bag of sweets, she will eat 2 and hand them back declaring she had had enough. Now I will be honest she is a picky eater, but will happily eat the same (rather small!) selection of fruits and vegetables every day.
My 3 year old is has also become more picky (although not as picky as her sister). But my god if I hear the word ‘snack’ off that child less than 100 times a day I would be shocked. Yes I say ‘no’ or ‘not until after dinner’ or ‘no because you didn’t eat your breakfast’ but yes, she eats snacks!
My children do multiple activities, are slim and healthy.
The child with their cheese puffs, that maybe their only snack of the day, it’s just that’s the moment you happened to see them. You may have missed the 50 times earlier in the day their parent had said ‘no’.
The children at swimming were probably hungry having finished school and had to go to swimming before dinner. Parents may have come straight from work and had no opportunity to home-bake sugar free, gluten free chia seed muffins.
You can’t judge people life's on a snapshot.

I agree about the playground snacks thing @Jamtomorrowneverjamtoday . There are quite a few at our pick up that are handed snacks as they come out. I understand that some children have clubs after school so might need a snack but a sandwich or wrap would be a far better snack over crisps or sweets.

DDs best friend comes out every day to a snack of either a chocolate bar or bag of sweets. Her mum has tried to stop it but her DD is collected by grandparents 3 days a week and her Disney dad 1 night a week who pretty much brings the sweet isle with him.

DD is not impressed with me as I'm much more of a you can have toast/ crumpet/ sandwich/ fruit when you get home mum. DD is usually ravenous after school and I've found that a more substantial snack is needed or else she will just raid the biscuit and crisp cupboard or natter for more snacks.

Of course it’s rude to complain to a waiter “I don’t like these things!” after reading a menu. What planet are you on?