Endless snacking

[Hihosilver123]

I find it interesting how some parents feel the need to constantly feed their children. Amongst school parents (primary) there seems to be a high level of anxiety if the children don’t have a snack at playtime. Surely children can survive from breakfast to lunch? It’s ok for them to be hungry for a bit, as lunch approaches, isn’t it? It’s the same with water bottles. Children don’t need to be endlessly sucking on a water bottle do they? Perhaps I’m old fashioned but snacking was not a thing when we were kids. We just ate at mealtimes, which included tea after school and then an evening meal.

My kids don't really snack but they eat quite large portions at meals. Other children I know have more frequent snacks but aren't big eaters. I don't think it matters particularly as long as the food is healthy and they are in a good weight range.

There is literally a thread on this every single week.
Some people snack, some children snack!

For god sake get over it and stop pretending it’s more virtuous to go hungry between meals.

The rights and wrongs of kids snacking must win the award for the most repeated topic on MN. It must be at least weekly.

Snacking is in my opinion one of the bigger causes of childhood obesity and increased dental decay.

I hate the constant snack demands and I actually blame nursery who used to feed them every 2 hours and was fully confused by the constant stream of food. Having said that My DD eats her breakfast at 7am on a school day and lunch at 12.30 so I do think she needs a snack as otherwise that’s quite a long time to go but it doesn’t do her any harm if she doenst always have it

Well I’m 34 and I remember having fruit at first break in primary. Hardly crime of the century!?

How old are you? We always had a play piece at school. So did my parents.

It’s amazing how many people on mumsnet are constantly in genuine confusion/amazement/befuddlement about things that affect them in no way whatsoever.

I snack. I don't mind DC snacking.

I'm mid thirties. I don't remember having snacks at school.

Not just repeated, repeated word for word. Like a doll you pull the string on. Snacking! Crisps at school gate! Sucking constantly on water bottles! Fat kiiiiiids! Nobody did this when I was young!

When in fact they almost certainly did. No matter how people online screech and wail, snacking was not invented in 2004. Little Women has Jo snacking on fruit as she reads, and Amy buying sweets to eat at break time at school. Stephen King’s It has the kids spending pocket money on fizzy drinks and sweets. Snacking was a thing then. It’s a thing now.

We had a tuck shop at school for playtime. Crisps, those calypso drinks full of artificial colours and sweets. lovely. A friend of mine used to bring a strip of jelly squares for snack. I was so jealous!

DS only gets 15 minutes to eat his lunch at school (there are three sittings due to lack of space) and he's a slow eater. Getting to eat one item from his lunch box at break means he gets an early start at eating his lunch. When he comes out of school he'll finish what he didn't eat from his lunch box. He'd be hungry if he didn't get those snacks. Nothing wrong with a small snack on the weekend, just something small like a biscuit or a piece of fruit.

Interesting? Or easily targeted for criticism?

Lots of children don’t eat enough at meal times for various reasons. Giving them a snack of fruit, yogurts, cheese, nuts is a good way to get nutrients into them. Water seems to improve kids attention at school. I remember feeling thirsty at school years ago and having headaches. A bit of dehydration in dimmer I would think.

Kids snacked years ago too. Why pretend they didn’t? I was a kid in the 80s/90s. My snacks were crisps and chocolate like my friends. My kids snacks are better.

Why worry what others give their children? Weird.

As a teacher I think a small snack at morning break is a good thing. It’s been 3+ hours since they’ve eaten breakfast and another 2 hours until they queue for lunch. I think it helps their concentration, providing it’s not an entire large bag of sweets or biscuits. My class are always hungry at break and lunch and almost all of them are a healthy weight. Lack of physical activity is a bigger problem in my opinion.

My MIL is like this. We've just been to stay with her and as usual she spent the whole time stuffing my children full of food. They repeatedly said "But I'm full!". Not only did she feed them 3 massive meals a day but she forced us to take huge bags of snacks whenever we went out. She seems to become extremely anxious if they haven't eaten for more than an hour.

My husband is 58 and snacks constantly. He is also about 4 stone overweight. I have given up trying to talk to him about this.

The culture of snacking is causing huge issues with obesity in this country. Of course there is nothing wrong with being a bit hungry. We never had snacks at school, just lunch and water from a water fountain! We came home and had a biscuit and then dinner.
Now parents are coming to school pick up armed with snacks and you can't go anywhere without kids expecting to be fed continuously. It's expensive for a start!

Depends on the kids really - much like everything else! My eldest never sits still, always moving, so feels fair enough to need a bit of fruit or toast by mid morning. I’d much rather they had a small snack than get really hangry.

I have breakfast at 7, then lunch at 130. If I didn't have a snack at breaktime, the period before lunch would not be pretty. And I'm not a growing kid.

I think we forget how much shit was available when we were young, too. Crisps at break. Tuck shop in primary school, selling sweets etc. Bacon butties or pizza slice in high school. Vending machines selling cans and chocolate bars.

The kids I teach think I'm making it up. "And if you were really lucky, the whirly thing in the machine kept whirling and you got TWO Twixes."

Perhaps I’m old fashioned Yes, I think so.

A healthy mid morning snack isn't that unreasonable in my opinion.

I'm more bothered by the culture of giving children junk food at regular intervals through the day, especially to keep them quiet/stop them whining for more/keep them full because they hardly touched their meals knowing that in an hour they'll get a bag of crisps.

It's not the act of having something beyond 3 meals a day that's the problem. It's the nature of the food given and the attitude towards the food that causes issues.

My 7 year old burns more calories before lunch than most adults would in a week. She needs to eat every three hours or there is hanger.

DS had three snacks today a banana and yogurt after swimming and some carrot he pinched while he was 'helping' make dinner. I was a child of the eighties and essentially raised on findus crispy pancakes and monster munch. I know who has a more balanced diet.

DC doesn’t have a morning snack but DC rarely eats breakfast so has her snack at nursery. They are given something like half a banana, a satsuma or carrot, none of those this are going to make them obese.