To think.. there is a weird obsession with snacking?

[helpmeplease2045]

I have two DC age 6 and 3.

My 6yo has a pretty big breakfast (bowl of porridge with fruit and often second bowl of muesli or cereal for e.g.), we then provide them with a morning snack (maybe piece of fruit) for school, then two hours later they have school lunch then after school parents are handing over more snacks (ranging from fruit to biscuits, cakes, crisps, sandwiches etc), then a snack at home / at a playdate / children's party. There are snacks after activities / on the way to activities.. all this before dinner.

Sometimes I feel like it's a constant battle to stop kids from constantly eating all day! When I was younger we had bkfast, morning snack maybe on a school day and school dinners then we waited till the evening meal. I don't think little children need a constant supply of (often sugary) treats throughout the day.

AIBU to not want my small children to be eating something every two hours!?

[ToastDemon]

We had a mid morning snack at nursery and the first couple of years at school and I would have battled without. I wasn't much of a breakfast eater.
From age eight (boarding school) it was three meals and fruit only. I don't remember this being an issue or feeling overly hungry.

[Notso]

We had snack at morning break at school. You could buy crisps or sweets from the tuck shop or bring your own. My lunch was mostly sandwich, Apple, penguin or crisps so I ate my crisps or penguin sometimes had 10p for tuck. We would have a snack after school as well a toasted tea cake, iced bun, biscuits or on a Friday a 10p bag of penny sweets. Dinner was almost always at 6.
At weekends we rarely had lunch. A cooked breakfast which for me was just bacon and toast or potato cakes parents had full cooked breakfast, and then a snack of either a piece of bread and butter or a bag of crisps until dinner.
My primary kids have milk and fruit for snack at school and usually a snack after school unless we are having an early dinner.

[WorraLiberty]

Spikey, if kids are handed food to keep them quiet, occupied or happy, that's going to store up a whole habit of boredom/emotional eating in the future.

Kids make noise, that's a fact. There are other ways to deal with it than handing them food.

[Wtfdoicare]

The trouble is 'snack foods for children' are a whole massive market now and are often unhealthy sugary carby crap claiming to be healthy just because they have some raisins in or something. I also find them incredibly expensive for what they are (bear snacks and stuff like that). I think if they eat a good portion of well balanced 3 meals a day they shouldn't need between meal snacks unless they have a particularly active day. My DC are now 6 and 8 and are slim and very active and do not get plied with snacks by me (childcare is a different matter unfortunately though). On weekends when I can monitor what they eat at each meal, they rarely ask for snacks and do not need them despite being non-stop active.

[EpoxyResin]

I think everyone thinks that f they're slim and healthy their way must be the best way when it comes to food. One family doesn't snack and they're all fantastically healthy? Great. Another family are grazers and are all fantastically healthy? It happens; also great.

PP mentioned different countries/cultures viewing our "three square meals" as madness, and it's the same between individuals. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and professing to have found the key and "why oh why doesn't everyone just do what we do?" (not that anyone here has, but people do!) is mere self-congratulation. You do you!

I snack like hell. So does DS. I'm a sportsperson at a reasonable level. I'm doing nutrition right FOR ME, and for now it seems to be right for DS too (probably because his metabolism is similar to his dear mother's!).

[itsonlysubterfuge]

DD is 4 and had never gone to playgroup, nursery, school, etc. She never asks for snacks. She asks for food when she's hungry and unless she has refused a meal, she is allowed something, but never does. Sometimes in the afternoon we have tea and a biscuit or two, but that is for pleasure rather than being hungry. We eat breakfast whenever she asks, sometimes she doesn't. Lunch is 11:30-12:00. Dinner is generally 5:00-6:00 depending on how long it takes me to get dinner ready. She is a normal weight for her height.

[WorraLiberty]

But we're not in a different country with a different culture.

We're in the UK where 1 in 3 children are overweight or obese.

[Porpoiselife]

I agree there seems to be a need for kids to be constantly stuffing something in their face.

Mine don't snack they range from age 3 - 15. They have breakfast, lunch and dinner. We eat about 6.30pm due to working but they all eat well and have a good relationship with food. if they do occasionaly get hungry between meals there is fresh fruit available. On the odd occasion that its me picking up my 2 youngest from school I am a bit at the number of kids being handed crisps and chocolate as they leave the school gate. Each to their own, but it seems a bit weird they can't even wait until they get home!

I also find it weird how at a theatre for example, so many kids have food (mostly high sugar stuff) given to them the whole way through the performance. Is it to keep them quiet? because I'm sure the e-number overload isn't helping them to sit still and behave! I always notice its the ones eating constantly that are not sitting and behaving. If a child really can't sit still and not eat for 90 minutes, at least put the food in a plastic container or something that doesn't rustle!

[Wtfdoicare]

"Epoxy" I think by their nature, snack = crisps/biscuit/chocolate and are not particularly healthy. If a child has 2 or 3 a day then that is a lot of additional calories on top of proper meals. If the snack is a polystyrene rice cake or piece of fruit then it's probably a bit better. I agree that the snack culture has a lot to do with obesity in children and adults.

[Spikeyball]

Worra my son is profoundly disabled and the other ways of keeping him quiet when he has to be quiet don't work. He is also slim with (unusually for a child with profound asd) no eating issues. So I don't see the issue for my son. Yes there will be better ways for most children.

[WorraLiberty]

Gotcha Spikey

[WhatWouldKeanuDo]

Snacking habits saw out and about changed between my first kid and the last.
Some kids do need extras but the norm shifted.
Keep doing as you are doing op.

[Fruitcocktail6]

I dunno, I'm a snacker, particularly in the morning. I could eat whatever I wanted to breakfast, eggs, porridge, a fry up, and I would be starving again with two hours. I start at 8 so bring breakfast in with me and eat around 9, I still need a snack at 11
Though. I'm better in the afternoon and evening, I'm just so hungry in the morning.

[Thefitfatty]

Since when is an apple not considered snacking?

[BeMorePanda]

there is a massive "snack industry" and absolutely this snack culture is pushed onto us and our kids. We live in a world where most peoples "nutritional information"/ideas about what to eat, is derived from advertising.

I try to keep any snacks limited to fruit, with crisps/biscuits occasionally usually when we are out and about. But it is a battle as almost every friend of their has parents who are always fully stocked up with crisps, sweets, and the devils drink "Fruit shoots" etc.

There is absolutely an obsession with snacking in our society.

[Pinkheart5915]

I don't really see the problem with snacks tbh, I am very much in the camp of well me and my brothers were given snacks and we are all slim and healthy so I don't see what harm they did really.

I think it's the choice of snack that matters some cheese or veg sticks are obviously better than a packet of walkers and a mars bar

My eldest is 18 months he gets up at 5:30am and has breakfast with dh before he goes to work, so by around 9 ds is looking for something normally he has an orange sometimes a rich tea biscuit but not often. Then lunch at 12:30 and then nothing until dinner at 6.
Dd is only 7 months so not long weaned and she does have more "snacks" but that's because she is just trying everything at the minute to see what she likes.

Some days I don't have 3 meals I just graze on fruit/nuts/cheese etc all day instead

[MrsHathaway]

a full lunch with pudding (school dinners another topic)

My super-active 8yo theoretically has a full lunch with pudding. But in reality he takes the minimum he can get away with, sans pudding, and sprints out of the hall as soon as he's allowed, to get more football/Bulldog/running around in during the break.

We've pushed tea to 5pm rather than the old 5.30/6pm we used to get away with because he and DC2 just can't manage any longer, even with something to eat straight out of school, unless that something is effectively a high tea of eg sandwich&fruit&malt loaf.

I don't necessarily think that the snacking is the problem so much as (1) that it's automatic, not even waiting for them to ask and (2) what you give them.

It's awkward to take nutritious snacks around with you, by which I mean something with a reasonable level of protein and/or fibre, as opposed to biscuits/crisps/sweets/chocolate which are extremely convenient. That said, I was mobbed in the playground the day I brought along a bag of sugarsnap peas!

[EpoxyResin]

I don't necessarily think that the snacking is the problem so much as (1) that it's automatic, not even waiting for them to ask and (2) what you give them.

I agree with this Mrs. Hathaway.

[LoupGarou]

I agree with the sugary aspect but having lived around the world, some cultures are entirely bemused by "3 square meals a day" and I can see why. It makes sense to eat what you want, when you're hungry. Why eat a big meal at 6pm just because everyone else does. Why not eat at 4pm if you're hungry and again at 5pm and again at 6pm but smaller amounts.

I agree with this completely. We're not in the UK but both DS and I snack regularly between meals. Both of us are slim, fit, very active and healthy and for us its not an issue. Horses for courses, everyone's body's and needs are so different there can't logically be a one size suits all soluble.

There is also the matter of people having different length days and levels of activity, surely three square meals and no snacks makes less sense for someone with a very active life who gets up at 4:30 am and goes to bed at 11:30 pm than someone with a sedentary life who gets up at 7:00 am and goes to bed at 9:30 pm.

[floatingfrog]

I think snacks for young children are to occupy them when you need then to be still - like school assemblies.

I too hate the snack culture but it is hard to avoid as it now ubiquitous. I think as long as they are really active it's not a problem.

Ideally it would be nice stop the snack culture.YADNBU.

[WorraLiberty]

I also think a lot of people who think they need to snack, actually only do it because they can.

If you worked somewhere with 2 ten minute tea breaks and half an hour for lunch, you might not bother.

But in offices (for example) a lot of people seem to spend all day eating.

[LoupGarou]

Bodies, not body's. Stupid autocorrect.

[SparkleTwinkleGoldGlitter]

I don't have any issues with snacks or snacking to be honest. I think the type of snacks matter

I have always been a snack fan, I struggle to eat a huge breakfast something light is all I can face at 4:30am so around 10/11 I have some nuts and dried fruit from my Tupperware box. Again with lunch I don't like a big lunch as it makes me feel sluggish so I have lunch at 12/1 and then around 4 I have another Tupperware box of small cheese cubes and chopped carrot or pepper. I don't eat again until I get home for dinner around 9/9:30pm. My calories are not over what they should be for a women of my weight and activity level so I'm fine with it.

My dd hasn't long been weaned and she does have a lot of snack bits but she is happy with little snack bits rather than us putting an actual meal in front of her.

I don't get people when they say I don't let my dc snack but they have access to cheese or the fruit bowl, umm I think some cheese or a piece of fruit is a snack surely?

[WorraLiberty]

I think snacks for young children are to occupy them when you need then to be still - like school assemblies.

Seriously though why?

Can teachers no longer manage to control the children without food?

I could never have imagined eating in assembly, or in church or anywhere like that as a kid.

[llhj]

I give my kids food whenever they want really. Fruit is always available. They seem to eat bits and pieces all the time. They're slim and I'm not too hung up on controlling everything that they eat. There's a food obsession on this site.