To think people (especially children) don’t need to be eating constantly?

[constantlyeating]

NC because I am going to get flamed for this.

I’m wondering whether this is why we have an obesity crisis. We are all constantly snacking!

For children it seems to have become: breakfast, morning break snack, school lunch, snack on the way back from school, dinner and then another something before bed— if not more often.

Does anyone have just 3 meals a day anymore? What ever happened to food only being eaten at the table?

I think you might be right actually. I think lots of people are unwilling to experience feeling hungry as they approach the next meal time. It might be partly because we eat such a lot of processed, high carb, instant gratification type food. Eating 3 proper, filling meals a day, with good nutritional content and letting yourself get properly hungry before you eat again - that's got to be a good thinkg, right?

I think it might be a bit different for young children though- they're growing, they've got little stomachs and they expend lots of energy. A healthy snack won't go amiss.

I only serve three meals. A big part of this is not wanting to clean up an extra two meals a day. But it also isn't necessary. My kids are 3 and 1 though, I appreciate it gets harder when they can reach food themselves.

I’ve started only having 3 meals a day. I’m getting properly hungry before the next meal and it’s a new sensation. I used to constantly snack and never felt hungry! I used to be so bad that I wasn’t even interested in a meal as I’d snacked so much. I think children need more (growth spurts, small tummies etc) but, as an adult, I don’t think snacks are necessary.

Not sure about kids but I'm definitely guilty of this. I feel a bit peckish and eat something instead of just waiting for my meal, it's so unhealthy and something I'm making an effort to stop.

My kids have always been snackers, but no weight issues

I think there's a difference between set snack times like at school/nursery and just eating mindlessly all day.
DS1 is 5 and has a school dinner at 12 and doesn't leave after school club till 5.30 - he'd be hangry and teary by the time he got home for dinner if after school club didn't give them anything to eat (usually a ham roll, occasionally a biscuit).

I'm also a fan of a cup of tea/snack mid afternoon - I have low blood pressure and tend to get a headache if I go too long without eating.

A morning snack and afternoon snack can comfortably be part of a healthy balanced diet (I would think most fruit is consumed as a snack for example). I always lean the other way and think it's the meals that people have lost sight of when it comes to healthy and balanced. Unhealthier breakfasts, calorific shop bought sandwiches, a lack of awareness around the plate make up and portion control for main meals and convenient food being too regular. Also people consuming more liquid calories that aren't filling than they realise.

DD doesn't snack between breakfast and lunch but I do give her a snack after school because she gets migraines and getting over hungry is one of her triggers. Dinner is usually not until around 7/7.30, sometimes even 8 so that we can all eat together, so she does need that after school snack - which she has after she gets home, not on the way home. I do see a lot of parents handing over snacks as they're leaving the playground (apart from that being completely unnecessary, I like DD to wash her hands when she comes home, especially at the moment!)

I don't really understand this though. I am early 40s and never had three meals a day as a child. At my school we had milk and biscuits at about 10 and a hot school lunch, my Mum would bring me an orange, probably a bowl of cereal when we got in. Another hot meal and then something later at night. We were thin, friends had similar patterns and they were all thin/skinny. My own children are the mumsnet cliche but are slim/bean pole but eat loads. My 14 year old inhales food, I can't keep up with the cost tbh. He doesn't put a pound on and his sister calls him pencil. My DD is 10 eats pretty much every hour when we get home if I'm honest. It is embarrassing to admit how much they eat. They both walk to and from school but that's only 3 miles in total every day. My DD is constantly doing stuff though so playing, crafting, grooming the Guinea pigs, piano practice. I would say she doesn't eat very big portions so she will ask for them but never has all of her dinner, she will leave stuff when she is full, even sugary things. Between them they only have one overweight friend and that isn't my flawed perception, ie. We have lost sight of what fat looks like, they don't have overweight friends.

Children need to eat more often than adults because they're growing and have smaller stomachs in the case of small children. Often they're also more active than average adults.

Healthy adults without relevant medical issues and who are not unusually active nor very elderly actually don't need to eat three meals a day though, that's just a cultural expectation/ practice.

Eating one or two meals per day suits many people and is completely fine for most adults.

Processed carbohydrates do lead to blood sugar spikes causing genuine hunger pangs despite having eaten enough calories. Eating minimal sugar and wheat and more protein gives more even blood sugar and less feeling of hunger.

I do think we have lost sight of "normal" feelings of hunger. I had to go into hospital recently and on my ward there were two very slim elderly women and four middle aged women. All of us were definitly on the lardy side ; kickstarted my diet that's for sure.

Have a biscuit to go along with your 3 meals

Meanwhile I'll stay over here living off a chicken that's lasted a month

Btw the one or two meals per day isn't a competitive under eating thing - they can be big meals

I prefer to have one really good, satisfying meal per day rather than multiple crappy little unsatisfying "nibbly" or diet meals.

I think people have always had snacks, it’s the size and the type of snack that’s the issue. I’m mid 40s and I remember coming home from school and having a small animal chocolate bar as a treat. My kids would expect to eat about 3/4 of those. (Awful, I know).

I like the saying of if you’re hungry enough to eat a chocolate bar you’re hungry enough to eat an apple. People just constantly graze on shite

When my kids are going through a growth spurt, they eat constantly. When DD was around 10-11 and growing like a weed, her school lunch portions were the same as those given to a 5 year old, but she needed more calories in a day that I did. I used to meet her at the school gates with a chicken drumstick and some fruit. Her hunger reminded me of pregnancy hunger, with that combination of being ravenous and getting very hangry if the right nutrients are presented asap. She's 14 now and no longer needs vast quantities of food, but I suspect her younger brother will hit that puberty growth spurt hunger before too long and the constant eating will start up again with a different child.

Isn't there some science somewhere that shows six small meals is better than 3 big ones? I hate big meals, I much prefer smaller portions; I do sometimes wonder if I have quite a small stomach (is that a thing?!)

I think the obesity crisis has got more to do with the 'convenient' swaps we've made in modern life. Premade pastry that's made with vegetable oils (polyunsaturated fat) than homemade stuff with butter (saturated fat).

I think it depends on how much you eat during those meals tbh. I come from a Romany and Indian background and in both eating 3 times and not snacking is the norm. But those meals are massive which is why we have the problems with diabetes / obesity that we do.

If you’re going to eat massive meals you should only be having one a day. With one ‘snacky’ meal (eg a sandwich made from 2 slices of bread), and the one ‘meal’ comprising of just a tea and biscuit or a coffee. Like how everyone used to eat across the world before food became so plentiful in some places and scarce in others.

Where are all these fat kids though because I rarely see them?

My dc are a healthy weight, but have a few snacks a day. I can't see the harm tbh.

Grazing is the issue rather than a planned, concious snack/ light meal.

It is easy to sink into a cycle of eating something that causes a spike and crash in blood sugars then repeating through the day.

You are right. It's much better for us to have a gap in eating for digestion and all sorts of other bodily processes. When I can I eat all my meals between 11am and 7pm, have two substantial meals and no snacks. Yet a lot of diet advice still says "Little and often," which for most people is a bad idea. Even diabetics do pretty well on intermittent fasting, as long as it is done with GP support.

However as a child/young person I was always eating, and they do need a lot of calories. As long as they are active, a healthy weight, they can sleep, concentrate at school and their teeth are ok, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Yes I was really surprised when my child started nursery and I found out they gave them breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack and tea. And that most children have a snack when they get home too. I have also been surprised by how many of my friends carry ‘snacks’ for their toddlers everywhere.

But what surprised me the most is how most of these ‘snacks’ are basically just air with zero nutrition - like rice cakes or those Ella’s Kitchen crisp things or whatever. Surely if a child is actually hungry they need to eat something with some actual nutritional value and calories? And if they’re not hungry they don’t need anything? And if we’re just giving them snacks with no calories when they aren’t hungry anyway we’re just teaching them to graze all the time?

My mom always carried fresh or dried fruit when we were little and I'm in my mid 40's now. I think there's a lot more extra curricular activities and pressure to get our kids into those meaning we're not always following traditional sit down meal times. So if you pick up little Cuthbert from school and he can't eat dinner before his activity he has to have something or he'll have no energy.