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.

I'm a major snacker, as are most of my family, and none of us have any weight issues, we're all slim. We just choose mainly healthy snacks. And we try to exercise. Several of us, me included, get low blood-sugar when we're hungry (and major risk of hanger) so we really need to snack between meals or else we get headaches, hanger etc.
The funny thing is, I am from North America which I think has an even bigger snack culture - being in the UK now, I think people here hardly ever snack compared to what I'm used to! For me the key is choosing healthy snacks.

I know quite a lot of people who continuously shove snacks into their children's hands. I met one friend for breakfast the other day, she brought her 1 year old who had already had breakfast, bit then proceeded to feed him 3 different snack until his breakfast came to the table to "keep him going". She used to do exactly the same with her elder child.

I eat 3 snacks a day and I'm still starving by the time mealtime comes around. If I didn't eat them I think I'd pass out. I'm on the lower end of healthy BMI. Everyone is different.

I do however think that maybe a decade or so ago there was this push for snacks among 'health experts' who basically started telling people you shouldn't ever feel hungry (how to stay full all morning!!!) and you should graze to 'keep your metabolism going'. Same with not eating breakfast or skipping a meal etc. I have a friend who told me in all seriousness that if I skipped lunch I was going to gain weight. She's a scientist and I asked her how exactly that was possible and she was legitimately confused, because that's just what people get told. People also don't see the contradiction in a diet where you are never hungry. If you're not hungry, you're obviously not eating less than you need are you?

I think that a lot of snacking in between meals is a habit for some people. If at home, and they see junky snacks in the cupboard or fridge etc, they just eat something whether they are hungry or not.

You see people having a nice kind of meal in the evening,and then see them sitting down an hour later,in front of the tv whatever, and they have popcorn, salty snacks and chocolate all around, and keep eating once again. It's a habit, and not a need for any food.

@DeeTractor

"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 don't think I said any of those things?

To be honest, if I were to feel hungry between meals, the last thing I would fancy would be carrot sticks.

Pukkatea. Yes I was clearly listening to the same experts!

I know this has been addressed upthread, but specifically on the French thing, it is different from what most English people would think of as snacking, although a lot of French people do snack nowadays, in the English sense of the word. But a French goûter is not really a snack as such, it's a scheduled time to eat something less than a full meal in mid-afternoon for children. If they're in an after-school club or similar then they'll all sit down to have it together. It really is like a small meal for children. It's completely different from just picking at food whenever you feel a bit peckish, which is what snack implies in English.

Personally I don't have much opinion on which is a 'better' way of eating overall. I guess it depends on lifestyle and metabolism and all sorts. I eat three meals a day and no snacks at the moment. When I had a baby, it was much more grazing and less sitting down to eat as I just didn't have the time or energy for full meals. Clearly grazing on top of three decent sized full meals isn't going to work unless you want to pile on the pounds, but if it's just a question of timing and spacing of the same amount of calories and nutrients over a day then I can't see how it matters.

"goûter" for us would be a yoghurt, a piece of fruit, compôte... If there was a day when our dinner would be particularly late, it might be a small sandwich. Surely this is what a snack should be, rather than multiple packets of food items? So often "snack" seems to be a packet of raisins, AND a bag of crisps, AND a banana. That's three snacks, not one!

Snacking was not a thing at all when I was a child. You didn't have a snack at mid morning break (other than your bottle of milk that a lot of children didn't drink). So breakfast before school, proper meal at lunch time and then "high tea" at 5 ish - usually a sandwich or salad or soup or a jacket potato - and possibly milk/cocoa/horlicks before bed. A snack was a big treat - eg an ice cream on the beach or a welsh cake from the bakers on the walk home from church (if you had behaved yourself...).

You must be new here. Allow me to summarise: .........

Nope not new at all. Just reading a different sort of thread.

A summary! Should have seen that coming....

Why so prickly?

I think we had the mid morning snack because we start hour early compared to UK. School and work starts at 8. So when I was young I had small breakfast just before 7, half past six when at college and then lunch at 12 or 12:30. That's bit long to go I guess without some fruit or small roll for an active kids

I wasn't organised enough to tote around a load of snacks for young children to graze on all the time

After school, to bridge the gap between a lunch around 12- 12:30 and dinner towards 8pm, often with swimming/ karate/ scouting in between, I do a "light tea" something like sharing a tin of rice pudding (we don't have desserts). I'd rather give them something more substantial and structured than have constant picking, grazing and raiding the cupboards.

I'll admit to being more sloppy over lockdown. 5.5 months of cooking lunch & dinner for 4, I have been lazy about breakfast on top and DS1 in particular with ASD and dyspraxia is not well motivated at doing himself things like toast or cereal and prefers to grab something instant. Now they are going back to school, I get let off the lunches and will go back to decent breakfasts again.

I do 5:2 and notice a difference if I mindfully or intuitively miss breakfast, compared to feeling lazy, miss it then end up eating something sweet. If I go down the latter route, I tend to end up making a sucession of poor choices through the day.

Some people find frequently eating works better for them, and it is fine with sensible choices that balance up with their needs. Too often frequent eating does mean that people make poorer choices and more than they require though.

@Jourdain11

"goûter" for us would be a yoghurt, a piece of fruit, compôte... If there was a day when our dinner would be particularly late, it might be a small sandwich. Surely this is what a snack should be, rather than multiple packets of food items? So often "snack" seems to be a packet of raisins, AND a bag of crisps, AND a banana. That's three snacks, not one!

You mean you never had chocolate in a baguette That was the goûter I always hoped for when visiting French friends!

I don’t think it’s snacking that’s the problem, but constant grazing. My DC have a small morning snack at school/nursery and then a more substantial snack after school.

Whereas some friends carry around snacks constantly for their children. A lot of their children seem to struggle to play in the park for half an hour without crisps, juice, chocolate. I’m sure that didn’t happen I’m my childhood, either in England or France.

We had nutella on a baguette Although it wasn't nutella, it was something different... but what was it called?

We also had those Écolier biscuits which have extortionate amounts of chocolate on them. I buy them even now for extortionate prices, in London. I think there was some kind of myth that they were good for you because of the milk in the biscuit

@Jourdain11

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

My idea of heaven!

Of course we don't need to be snacking, that wouldn't happen in nature, if we didn't have supermarkets, fridges...going hungry sometimesis natural and our bodies have a mechanism to survive if we are hungry, even for a long period of time (we have fat deposits for a reason!).
Not being hungry ever and snacking all the time is he most unnatural thing.
What's wrong with being a bit hungry before a meal?

“
I'm not being obtuse. It's like saying that you don't do cycling but that you travel to work on a two wheeled pedal driven framed vehicle.”

I think you’re being obtuse, or at lease hung up on semantics.

Imagine that the French children’s afternoon meal is referred to as “supper” - often considered a meal elsewhere, a bite before dinner. It isn’t a “snack”, it’s an established meal.

Does that help you get past the OP’s choice of wording?

YANBU OP. We don’t need anywhere near the amount of food that we consume.

Sorry - a bite before bed. After dinner.

What's wrong with being a bit hungry before a meal?
I'm always a bit hungry before a meal, even though I snack quite a lot.

Depends on the snack as well surely. There is so much over processed shite out there being marketed as healthy - I'm looking at you stupid brownie thing with the annoying advert with the 'turn around Barbara ' song
(I may have anger issues with that advert )

@uglyface

Babies and toddlers have tiny stomachs, so need more frequent feeding.

I think this is nonsense when you get to the toddler a toddler’s stomach is in proportion to the size of their body, so they don’t need to be fed more often. I’ve put my one year old son onto 3 meals a day (one possible afternoon snack) and that is that. I’m shocked at the tales of them being fed constantly at nursery!

That explains why I got big meals on my French home stay! I think picking less between meals these days is why I’ve lost a bit of weight.

I think this is nonsense when you get to the toddler a toddler’s stomach is in proportion to the size of their body, so they don’t need to be fed more often. I’ve put my one year old son onto 3 meals a day (one possible afternoon snack) and that is that. I’m shocked at the tales of them being fed constantly at nursery!

The Caroline Walker Trust says 1-4 year olds should have three meals a day and two healthy snacks. www.cwt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CHEW-1-4YearsPracticalGuide3rd-Edition.pdf And that they should be fed little and often.

A growing toddler's dietary requirements are very different from those of an adult so I wouldn't expect to feed them as I would an adult.

"Free flow" snacks were the latest thing in nurseries a few years ago.