To find the obsession with snacks weird

[yipyipyop]

I've noticed in recent years lots parents seem to think their children can't survive a few minutes without a snack. We live a 5 min walk from school so I don't but parents with a similar commute seem to have a bag full of snacks they're handing out. It just seems over the top

My two are neurodiverse and by the time they had kept their shit together in school were on the verge of meltdown leaving school. Their paediatrician suggested having a crunchy snack available on leaving school - apparently the sensory input can be very grounding for hyperarousal. So yes, they get handed a snack at the school gates - and we have a much calmer, safer journey home.

80’s baby and same for me too

This baffles me too.

I remember at my NCT class when we'd meet up with our babies/toddlers all of the mothers used to be constantly shoveling snacks in the direction of their DC - generally while complaining that their babies were terrible eaters at mealtimes and barely picked at their food (presumably because they were already full). I never saw the need to give mine snacks as it just didn't make sense to me to have my DC constantly eating.

The logic behind it is if you have 3 meals and a couple of snacks you're not getting to the point of hunger and you are less likely to over eat/eat fast. It should also replace dessert/pudding

But it's only beneficial if the snacks are nutritious

Why though?

'Depressing as fuck' because you don't eat between meals and again after dinner in the evening?

Bit OTT.

I agree that we are snacking too much but I did hand over food the minute they walked out of school in reception to prevent tantrums about walking home as but half three they were starving and grumpy as school lunch was served at 11.15 in EYFS. Even though they were the year group that got free fruit it was served in the morning!

By the time they were older lunch got later as they were fed in age order slots at school and they were able to wait and much less likely to cry even if they were hungry and tired.

I suspect very few 4 year olds are eating dinner at 7.30pm.

If you've just swapped dinner and supper around, that's a different situation to parents who constantly carry and offer snacks on demand.

Depends doesn’t it, on the child, routine and what’s happening after school.

Mine are still quite young have a 30-45 minute trip home, they leave the house at 7am and when we pick them up at 4.15pm they haven’t eaten since 12ish. So yes, they get a (healthy) snack for the way home.

Some days they are off to activities, and don’t get home until 6.30pm (6 and 8yr old) or 8.30pm in the case of my 11yr old. I think giving her a snack between school and this physical sports activity is a good thing.

Other times, yes of course, some kids sometimes have too many snacks.

It’s ok to be hungry, as I tell my kids sometimes when they’re begging but it’s 45 mins until the next meal.

I don’t really see too many snacks, but the ones I do have children on the slimmer side of normal. They probably need more calories.

Snacks were definitely a big thing when I was growing up, sadly not for me, apart from some fruit after school. I still don’t eat snacks, and I am definitely not on the slimmer side of normal! Maybe I should try having more snacks and then smaller portions of lunch and dinner.

YNBU.

Obviously there are times when a snack makes sense, but it's the ubiquitousness, and this idea that even school age kids need them all the time. Fed on demand. I am sure part of that is because of what breastfeeding mums are taught, which is great for infants, but even older babies don't typically need to be fed on demand when they are breastfeeding.

It drives me crazy that so many kids activities involve snacks between meals.

I don't think snacks every hour or two are healthy, outside of certain medical conditions, and they also set up bad habits. They come out of that period where the advice for being healthy and staying slim was, eat small snacks and meals constantly.

Not sure this is a new thing; I remember most people having a packet of crisps at playtime in my early 1970s primary school. I can also remember being absolutely ravenous on the way home, so we usually had some bread and jam or something between lunch and dinner. As a parent I often kept my toddlers entertained with boxes of raisins or breadsticks, and that was more than 20 years ago.

I don't think this is a new thing either. The types of snacks have probably changed (more processed stuff in packets now) but we had snacks as kids.

'Elevenses' has been around for decades, if not longer! We also usually had a snack after school, then dinner and sometimes 'supper' too (usually cheese and biscuits in my house). No one in my family was or is overweight. All very active though, maybe that makes a difference.

I also don't think the logic necessarily works.

I think we've basically trained many kids to think that they need to feel "full" all the time, they don't realize it's fine to feel peckish and not eat right away.

Tell that to my hangry 2 year old. There's no way he'd be able to go hours between meals and I struggle to see how the average active, growing toddler doesn't get hungry or is able to fit in all the calories they need without snacks.

i started primary school in 84 and had snacks at play time/break through school. we didn’t drink much but looking back we’re probably a bit dehydrated on warm days!

I nursery nursed from 96 and we had snacks and water/juice back then in nurseries so it’s hardly a new thing. Busy kids in nursery( and school) needed drinks and a bit of a snack( fruit/veg sticks etc), also it was good down time and structure for them to sit at the table for ten minutes and regroup!

Surely it all depends and everyone is different. I have a 12 and 13 year old. They eat after school - anything they can find as they often play football at lunch break.
Supper always features here - cereal , flapjacks, fruit, crackers .
All of my children have snacked, they are all slim and healthy. We probably tend towards smaller portions rather than huge meals.
I work 13 hour shifts with one half hour break ( on a good day ). I am a big snack fan as a result , but fruit , a babybel etc rather than crisps or chocolate.
Surely it doesn't matter when people eat as long as the food they are eating is OK and keeping them energised.
Food can be tricky for people , best not to police it or be obsessive about food for children .

I take a snack for my kids. I pick up my youngest from the infant school and then we walk round to the junior school to wait 15 mins for his siblings before walking home. Youngest comes out of school ravenous and gets upset waiting so I have him a snack. He's not overweight and seems genuinely hungry so I don't see why I shouldn't.

I have a toddler and the NHS guidelines are 3 meals and 2 snacks. Seems a lot of food to me but they only have little stomachs.

My youngest son (autistic) is underweight so snacks are advised by his dietician.

DD was (and still is) always ravenous after school so I'd take a snack along after primary school especially as several days we weren't coming straight home.
I agree some parents are obsessed about giving their kids snacks all the time amd the kids hardly eat at mealtimes. SIL is like this with her kids.

For those saying it's not "new".

The whole lots of snacking thing started in the 80s. So many on MN would be post the snacking era.

Before that quite young kids had some snacks, usually depending on other mealtimes and such - so perhaps an after school snack for kids who wouldn't have a meal until much later in the day. Or where people ate breakfast early they would have a mid morning snack.

And for many mid day may have been the larger meal, up into the 60s in some places.

But snacking was limited and not just "every time you feel a bit hungry you need a snack." The change in the 80s was this idea that you should never feel hungry. And more recently, I think the rise of packaged snacks. Lots of kids when I was at school would have an apple or banana for mid-morning snack, or a little carton of milk. Now it's often very processed stuff.

Kids in the 1970s had free milk at school

I remember when DD was going through a growth spurt during primary school and would come out absolutely ravenous. I started meeting her at the school gates with a chicken leg. She needed a significantly higher intake than I did. And she was far from obese - we couldn't get get any school trousers to fit that year because she was measuring at age 8 around the waist and age 14 in leg length.

I can't talk because I'm aaallways snacking - but I agree the obsession with providing snacks like it's an emergency is weird.

I've met children who start panicking if they feel hungry like they're in danger of death because it's a feeling they've been taught is urgent

Enid Blyton's books are full of kids gorging on multiple "ices", chocolate, snaffling buns and biscuits from Cook or random farmers' wives. They ate 4 meals a day and seemed to be constantly grazing in between. I think very privileged children always ate a lot and had regular snacks. My dad grew up dirt poor jn the 40s and had snacks - bread and dripping, sugar butty, an apple or a bit of stale bread toasted with jam.

There's no hard and fast rule that western "mealtimes" are the optimum way to eat. It's nonsense. Nutrition is, obviously, more nuanced than " if you don't cram the day's calories into three approved sessions you'll be fat". The only "obsession with snacks" I see is from the pearl-clutching judgemental brigade who come over all unnecessary at the thought of a child being given a gingerbread man when it's not teatime 🙄