Snack culture = unhealthiness?

[Jourdain11]

I watched the 1950s episode of Back in Time for Dinner on BBC last night and it was quite interesting that, while the young family members hated the food (which admittedly looked grim), they said that they realised that they didn't actually need to have snacks all the time.

I understand that there are a lot of considerations to take into account when "combatting the nation's obesity crisis", but I really wonder if a lot of the blame lies with snacks?

It seems weird to me that, from nursery onwards, we promote this culture of having constant snacks between meals. Healthy snacks, unhealthy snacks, "treat snacks"... much of which is just unnecessary eating. And also, some of the snacks have grown to the size of small meals!

In France, where I grew up, snacking between meals was not and is not really a thing. You are supposed to feel hungry for meals! The only "snack" we ever had as kids was an after-school snack, and that would be, for example, a piece of fruit, or a yoghurt, or a slice of bread and cheese.

To put it into context, the "3 meals, 3 snacks" model is used in ED recovery programmes, designed for aggressive weight gain, i.e. because it is actually dangerous for the person to remain at their current body weight. Yet it seems like quite a large proportion of the population are also following this model!

This isn't intended as a vilification of British eating habits (as I know this exists in many other cultures also) but it does make me wonder if we have collectively got into a warped mindset about healthy eating habits and hunger, and whether this may be a big contributor to the health crises we face in this country, which have made so many people more vulnerable to serious impact from Covid-19.

YANBU, snacking caused me to gain a fair bit of weight whilst on mat leave (I actually weighed more than the day I gave birth the day I went back to work after mat leave...). My meals were balanced, but 'a quick snack' adds up for a lot of people during the day. Since just sticking to actual meals (2 or 3 a day, depending how hungry I am etc), and if I am actually hungry between meals having a snack of fruit or veg the weight started to fall off. I am conscious I don't want DS to be a serial snacker, he eats his meals and I offer fruit if he is hungry, and he has cake, chocolate etc sometimes, but I have tried to avoid building an association with certain foods ie chocolate everyday after nursery, crisps mid morning etc. Whenever we go out some of my friends load their bags up with snacks for the journey, snacks for the cinema or whatever; if I did that I would pile the weight back on.

I also don't think the OP IBU to notice this, coming from a different food / eating culture, though it's clearly uncomfortable reading for some. The French are generally a lot more disciplined and have a lot more rules about food than we do in the UK. Something I find weird when I go back to the UK now is adults eating children's food. My SIL bought some cartoon-themed ice cream lollies for the children to have for dessert one evening. The next afternoon, at 2.30pm, my FIL and BIL decided to have one each just because they fancied something sweet. To my French side it was just utterly bizarre to see: grown adults choosing to eat children's Buzz Lightyear ice creams, in the middle of the afternoon. That kind of random snacking on crap just doesn't figure in the French food rules at all, which are generally

Breakfast; cigarette, coffee, possibly a tiny dried bread thing
Lunch: three / four courses, consisting of salad starter, meat / fish / chicken and vegetables, cheese and dessert. This lunch is served in every single work canteen, bistro, school cantine across the country.
Gouter for children: biscuits, fruit, compote, yoghurt
Dinner: usually a smaller version of lunch.

So proper meals, modest portions, no snacking between.

It's changing though. Despite all the slagging off that British food etc gets here, pubs serving craft ales and burgers / fish and chips / pizza are hugely popular among young people. Partly, it's because the "Cool Britannia" branding is still popular, and young people like the informality of pub-style dining, compared to the more formal 3-course restaurant meal.

Sorry this is OT! I find the differences really interesting. My children are growing up with a foot in each camp as we are still quite British at home, but they are in French schools / go to French homes with their friends.

@HaveYouSeenMyFriendKimberley

The snack box for kids had just become ridiculous.

We've had situations in sports groups where 15 / 20 mins in water break was becoming snack break and it took the instructor to say "No snacks please!" Thank goodness or it does become odd to be the "neglectful" parent NOT giving a snack.

Yes, exactly! The expectation that there are multiple snacks provided for every conceivable activity. Like the children might expire on the 30 minute train journey if they don't bring 3 snacks... It is so often just something to "occupy".

My DSC graze constantly (on shite) at their mum’s house. She even turns mealtimes into a grazing activity (and serves no veg or other unpopular foods). She’ll give them chocolate just before a meal to shut them up (DH has observed this many times).

As a result they are horrible eaters. They’ve no table manners and just can’t sit and eat properly with people. They’re also totally obsessed with junk food. When I first met DH they’d constantly ask for sweets and chocolate. They’d never eat an actual meal, but would consume ridiculous amounts of crisps, biscuits, cakes, sweets and anything else that screams ‘empty calories’. They’d not eat their dinner but eat a big pudding and then an hour later they’d get ‘supper’ of cake or waffles with chocolate or something. I was really shocked and pointed out that obviously they’re never going to eat actual food if they know something covered in chocolate would be along in a minute. He was (and is) just too lazy to do anything other than follow his ex’s lead.

It’s hard trying to deal with them (and I have children here who need to be fed properly) when that’s what is still happening at their mother’s house. And even harder when she is deliberately trying to tell the children that asking them to eat meals with everyone else and serving veg is unacceptable.

YANBU. I'm amazed at the constant grazing when people are out and about. It seems people can't go for an hour without shoving something in their gobs.

Agree with pp about children and toddlers being fed constant snacks. Nursery seems to feed them non stop, and most of the toddlers are grossly obese.

YANBU

You don't see lions snacking on rats in between meals of zebra!

This might be an unpopular opinion but as long as you're not a fainter short term hunger isn't really a problem is it? I'm sure our ancestors often when longer periods without food. Obviously if you have diabetes or something then that's different! Sometimes if me and DP do a Saturday of our hobby (v.energetic) and we're late we don't eat and won't get home til 5-ish. Of course we're ravenous and have a big dinner but it doesn't seem to do is any harm. Unless we go to the supermarket while hungry. V.bad idea. You end up buying a whole birthday cake or similar.

We have this thread every week.

Agree totally. We sometimes used to have a digestive biscuit and a glass of squash when we got home from school but other than that, 3 meals a day and that was it. Remember DSIL being hung about with bags of snacks and juice bottles for a one hour visit to a playground.

The problem is, snacking becomes the norm and is difficult to stop when you get older.

We have this thread every week.

great 🤷‍♀️I've never read it before.

If you do a physical job, you're probably going to need 4 meals plus snacks. If you sit at a desk all day 2 meals and maybe one snack is enough.

Pah ha ha.

I sit at a desk for long hours and (as I said above) I need to eat about every three hours. And yes, I mean 'need', not 'fancy' – I get a rumbling stomach and feel light-headed if I don't. People are different.

BTW the French breakfast of 'cigarette, coffee, possibly a tiny dried bread thing' sounds shite, however sophisticated France might be about food otherwise. I don't smoke, but the rest of that wouldn't get me up the stairs to my desk!

Remember DSIL being hung about with bags of snacks and juice bottles for a one hour visit to a playground

I read this wrong and thought DSIL was hung with bags of snacks like literally standing there with bags of pic n mix attached to her outfit

Babies and toddlers have tiny stomachs, so need more frequent feeding. School aged children could probably manage until a meal, as adults could.

YANBU - I think some people think the slightest hunger pangs is something to be avoided, and also snack due to boredom a lot. Of course a small healthy snack at 3pm if you are genuinely ravenous and won’t eat again until 8pm is fine, but a lot of people have biscuits at work, then a packet of crisps, then some nibbles before dinner etc. I personally only snack when I’m actually hungry and it’s at least 2 hours until my next meal, which maybe happens once every couple of weeks. Otherwise I ignore the hunger pangs until meal time. I think it’s the main reason I’m a size 8-10 as I don’t watch what I eat otherwise and have big portions.

I do get that 6 small meals work better for some people, but that isn’t really the question - we’re talking about people who have three big meals a day AND snack lots in between.

I did laugh at the "coffee, cigarette, small dried bread thing" breakfast. Quite accurate, but not exactly a paragon of healthy lifestyle!

Maybe every week someone thinks that this situation we are in is odd and not how things were in the past / in their home culture. And is it just them or do others see it too.

If I dont snack I tend to overeat at mealtimes. Little and often has always worked much better for me but I am very conscious of what I eat and calorie count and just build my snack allowance into my daily calories. It's like anything else really, too much of it will make you fat whether that be hot food on a plate or cold food in a packet

Just to add I'm also anemic and I really struggle to stay awake after a big meal so perhaps that why I favour the little and often way of eating

I always used to be a grazer but actually I don't think it was healthy for me, and I now watch it through a parents eyes with my daughter and am actively trying to stop it. I find it very difficult not to snack, I eat often because I can, it's there, I'm bored. It's often mindless eating. I'm now at a healthy weight but was much bigger and the thing that makes the single most difference for me is stopping snacking.

Eating frequently across the day is bad for insulin levels and your oral health. Ideally you would leave a good fasting window between your last a first meals. 16 hours say. Then lunch, a snack if you must and dinner.

"great 🤷‍♀️I've never read it before."

You must be new here. Allow me to summarise: Every adult in the UK (apart from those on MN) is a fat gelatinous blob whose only instinct is to constantly feed and drink. You will see this referred to as "gobbling/guzzling/stuffing/gorging/devouring" but never just "eating". This is accompanied by "having a starbucks cup/water bottle" super glued to their massive ham fists from which they constantly suck at like starving wolf cubs at their mother's teat. Similarly, every child in the UK is a clone of Augustus Gloop, except those whose parents post on MN; these children will invariably be tall, skinny and athletic and couldn't gain weight if their lives depended on it. They have also never eaten chocolate and don't know what McDonald's is.

Meanwhile, in continental Europe, there are no fat people are everyone floats around like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. They spend their time sitting in little cafes drinking black coffee and smoking entirely too much, but this is OK because it keeps them slim. McDonald's doesn't exist and children only eat crudites and (homemade) hummus.

I actually find my IBS is better on 3 meals plus 2-3 snacks than it is on just 3 meals so I would be curious to read research saying that snacking could be a cause of IBS.

Like Intermittent I feel awful if I don’t eat regularly and I need to eat good portions of food, not small amounts. I have a BMI of 21 so I think this way of eating suits my body.

I do think that “being hungry” for a short while before dinner, and “being tired” before bed are all positives. It’s what bodies are designed to do: to tell us what we need (admittedly mine often tells me I need chocolate, wine, and bad TV rather than broccoli and exercise...).
But it does feel like lots of people see it as a disorder or abuse if you don’t immediately eat something at the first sensation of hunger.

I have had a needing to eat thing. Normal weight and ate lots of the recommended wholemeal things so I didn't see it as an issue.

It ramped up horribly as I aged until I felt pretty light headed / hungry all day. Intermittent fasting and far lower carbs have left me feeling far better. I wish I'd not been conditioned into fat avoidance and multiple meals and snacks for so long.