To be concerned about 'snacks'

[dayoneoftheschoolholidays]

So it's the first day of the school holidays for us.

My daughter (9) is an absolute nuisance for asking for snacks every waking minute of the day, it's manageable at the weekend, but 40 solid days of this incessant mithering is going to finish me off.

We have been to a play centre today and out and about running a few errands, so not bored lazing around the house.

But all she's done is mither about food and snacks, slushies at the play centre, vending machine, etc...

She got slushy, and we had a McDonald's lunch for a first day off treat, but since getting home it's the usual mithering for junk food.

She's a healthy size and weight, fits into clothes for her age with plenty of room, plays football, swims, does gymnastics, so I'm not concerned about that side of things, but obviously if I allow her to stuff herself silly it could become an issue in the future.

She eats well, three decent meals a day and plenty of healthy snacks available whenever she wants such as fruit, rice cakes, water, vegetable sticks etc. But she constantly wants biscuits, crisp, chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks.

We don't not allow it. She is allowed maybe 1 or 2 small things a day, the odd fizzy drink when we eat out, we don't have a ban on this stuff, I just want her to enjoy it in moderation and not gorge on it for the sake of it.

I've explained it isn't healthy for her, she needs to have a drink if she feels like she might be hungry, or grab an apple or something, not constantly pester me for crap food, but it goes in one ear and out of the other and before I know it she appears again mithering for 'snacks'.

How do you/would you manage this?

One of my kids has a store of junk in their room collected from various party bags, easter and even back as far as Halloween,
they’ll often ask for a treat and I’ll say “is there something in your room you can have?”
and they’ll be like “oh yeah “ more often than not they don’t bother getting something from their own stash

it’s boredom in our case, they want the boost of excitement that comes with getting the junk food , finding something in the cupboard or being given it by me

@dayoneoftheschoolholidays so I seen somewhere a parent made a shop for snacks- the children got fake cash for things like helping mum with the dishes or keeping their room clean ( no more than 25 dollars a day) then she made a price list one peice a fruit a day was free and water then everything else had a price- the price list basically made it so she could only have one junk thing a day and then healthy snacks. So for example the chocolate or crisps would all be 15 dollars-
Rice cakes, vegetable sticks etc would all be 2 dollars fruit and water 1 dollar. When the money was gone no more snacks.

Something like this could work maybe x

Personally I’d just hide all the treats and say you only have fruit/crackers.
I’m incredibly lucky, my two don’t snack, they have access to a few sweets in the cupboard but they never touch them and even when they are given chocolate it gets put in the fridge and stays there for weeks! I’d go mad if they kept nagging me for snacks! 😂

Well I’m an 80s child and we didn’t have snacks in the house but we did get good pocket money and there were no restrictions on what we did with it. We mostly spent it on chocolates, crisps, sweets and cookies from the corner shop.

Probably a bit of boredom in there OP but it might be worth listening to this podcast - I found it eye-opening. Some interesting stuff about how ultra-processed ('junk') foods confuse our sense of satiety.

My youngest is 6 and was asking for snacks CONSTANTLY during the first few days of the holidays. I have drilled into her that she can have one snack in the morning, and one in the afternoon. If she asks for more, then she can help herself to fruit.

The snacks I offer aren't terrible - breadsticks, crackers, raisins. But I know she is eating for the sake of it rather than actually being hungry.

Agree with others that this snacking culture is a new thing. There were never any snacks in my house when I was a kid. The food industry has us all believing that these things are necessary.

You’ve no idea! 😆

I’m late fifties and we definitely didn’t have snacks at home or a tuck shop at school either.

You had a hot school dinner and sandwiches at tea time at home about 5pm. I also didn’t get pocket money although my best friend got a couple of quid every Saturday for comics and sweets, so I got given her comic when she’d read it.

Sweets were a treat for the holidays. We also didn’t have take-away food (the first Chinese appeared in my home town around the late 80’s) other than a chippy tea, again mainly reserved for the holidays. There wasn’t much spare money in our family, so that was why extras weren’t available. I was very aware of the better off families locally whose kids got to attend after school activities like dance classes and gymnastics.

I don’t offer snacks routinely and find my DC rarely ask for any, although I might offer if they have friends round to play. DH is Glaswegian and was brought up on beige crap so he’ll sometimes offer the kids chocolate or crisps but I try to limit it as I strongly believe that’s it’s not a good habit for them to get into. Not dissimilar to smoking in some respects if it becomes an addiction. 🤷🏻‍♀️

My dc are 7&8, they can have fruit if they want a snack and that's more or less it. It's not at all joyless, we still have treats but as everyday snacks for when they get hungry it's fruit or you're not that hungry!

I'd explain what you have said here and get her to make the rules for the snack box up.

Snacking just didn’t happen when I was a kid, it was the 1970’s and frowned on. But we were raised by people that had endured rationing which carried on till the early 1950’s. I rarely gave my children snacks. The stuff you listed is a lot of junk food and if you want it in the house that’s fine but people need to stop kidding themselves about amounts of junk food eaten. My DS used to think he was hard done by.

As my school there was one child that was overweight, the boys who were arses absolutely ridiculed her. I live near 3 schools and so many of the kids are the size of that girl I went to school with it’s the new norm.

I also grew up in the 70's

Snacking culture was not a thing at all.... there were no little packets in multi packs. Nothing much with characters on to attract children. No Mac Donald's and no pizzas etc

Never felt deprived, food served a purpose, to fill you up....we ate, and quickly moved on to live our life! Couldn't wait to get back to playing.

Never knew a single obese person either

Unfortunately, nursery and school build snack time into their day from a young age and so it becomes the norm for kids.

It has nothing to do with school and nursery and everything to do with the amount of ‘snack’ foods that aren’t actually snack foods (crisps, chocolate bars, packs of sweets are treats in my opinion) people feel the need to stock up in the house. I know people who have draws and cupboards full of multipacks of all sorts. If I’m in a queue at the check out most people’s trollies, especially if they have children with them, are also filled with the stuff. If the kids know they are in the cupboard then of course they want to eat them.
Mine have one snack at break time at nursery and school - so around 10 o’clock. One way to get my DC to shut up about snacks is to say ‘does Mrs … give you a snack when you’re in the middle of your lesson after lunch? No, well you don’t need one now then. What do you have as a snack at school at 10 o’clock? Oh yes a piece of fruit. So no you don’t need xyz between breakfast and lunch.’

Meals are enough.
Fruit bowl for snacking on - oranges, pears, apples etc, not just bananas

When I was a child it was either a multi pack of crisps, bars like Jacobs Club plus fruit, biscuits etc.

When it was gone it was gone.

My nephew (recently turned 4), used to be a devil for snacks, so much so that it was ruining his meals and he was putting on weight. He'd always ask for more too. Now it's the odd ice cream, cake bar, biscuit or fruit which his parents or if he's at mine or GP's house we give out (in moderation). Then its gone.

I grew up in 70s (born 71). Yes there was less snacking but there was still crisps, chocolate, sweets to buy either by parents or with pocket money.

There was more fruit but only if parents bought it (mine did).

But those were more of treats. There was a McDs in our local town when I was 8 and pizza was in the next big town but a huge restaurant (plus Pizza Hut).

Snacks could be anything from Penguin bars to Eggy Bread, Wagon Wheels or extras from bakery or yogurts - I had yogurts as a snack. Popcorn and Slush Puppies and Soda Streams were beginning to be a thing.

Tough love, difficult I know, perhaps any 'treats' are limited and conditional on not moaning about snacks.

DC4 does this. It's actually pointless getting treats as he only cries for more if he has them.

I just give him healthy options so either he has those or stops asking

Ugh, I feel your pain. Snacks have never been a huge problem. I buy a weeks worth, she eats them. I don’t care when and there literally ARE no more once they are gone. So there’s nothing I can do. One of the pros of an only child.

However, she is twelve, and I am trying to train her out of simply yelling ‘muuuum’ whenever a thought passes through her head. That perhaps, at twelve, she could possibly pour herself a bowl of cereal or a glass of water, or Google whether cats eat grass without needing my involvement? I have stated that my involvement in meals starts and ends at dinner. There is a list of acceptable-to-both parties options for any meal on the cork board. They are short and manageable lists (not my fault, kiddo. I didn’t set the Whole Worlds Healthy Eating Guidelines Against Sugar or your fussy eating restrictions! Take it up with management, not me)

I mean, there’s no point telling me we’re out of syrup while I’m hanging out washing. Ask Alexa to add it to the shopping list. It’s far more likely to result in actual syrup being restocked. That’s why we have Alexa!

I'm another 1970s child. Free access to some unappealing fruit in a bowl.
Had to ask otherwise.
No free access to pop, squash, crisps, biscuits etc.
Sweets were occasional treats.

DD is 3 and she has snacks. Snacks were recommended in weaning guidance so we did. She also gets offered snacks at nursery so it is what she's used to. She gets notably grumpy when she's hungry so can tell she needs it. Pepper sticks and some pieces of cheese are a favourite snack at the moment.

When I was at school in the 80's and 90's we had a snack at morning break (usually fruit as I recall) and I remember have a cheese cracker or similar when I got in from school as I was always hungry and dinner was still a good couple of hours away.

Snacking in and of itself isn't a bad thing as long they are healthy and actually snack sized.

To be honest I have more of an issue with the fact that nursery has normalised a pudding after every meal than a small snack!

Humans are grazers it is normal to snack little and often. What isn't normal is 3 square meals, that is society not natural. Have you tried giving bigger breakfasts to and more filling/ protein based ones?
It's also a sugar fix/ addiction thing.
I'm totally the same. If I know it's there the sugar addiction in me won't rest until I've had it.

At home when she asks just keep saying there's fruit and veg in fridge help yourself. Mine know they are allowed couple biscuits or bag crisps a day after dinner or lunch.

I would take a zero approach with junk food requests when out for a while. I pre warn mine that I wont be buying food when out or set an expectation that it will be one slushy or ice cream etc and if they constantly ask then that wont happen.

Ours are the same and likely due to boredom
plus you have to think the marketing is thrown at them constantly. Therefore we have a plastic box and each morning the children put in a few snacks that they would like that day. Once they’ve had them they aren’t allowed anymore so its up to them to decide when to have them. Works well.

Snack box is a great idea, then she can learn to regulate herself and she has control. She's old enough.

Once she gets used to the idea you could involve her in putting together her own snack box for the next day so she has some say over what goes in it, too.

Could be an opportunity to teach her about foots with high energy content vs low energy content (I wouldn't frame it as 'healthy/ unhealthy'). 9/10 is a good age to learn about this stuff but has to be done in a way that she doesn't bounce the other way into overly restrictive eating/ dieting!

This is a great idea. My 8 year old son is exactly the same. Also asks for his lunch at 10am. Always saying he's hungry (used to say starving until I showed him Some pictures of people who are actually starving) I think he just likes his food but it drives me mad.