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

Stopped in 1971 for over 7s

They have free milk because some children are raised on a diet of haribo, Doritos and takeaways. So sometimes the only decent food they have is at school, where they might have a bit of apple, or a slice of carrot or .. shocking a few slurps of milk.

You do know that this was a Labour government move in 1968? Thatcher was part of the following Tory gov who carried through the policy by she was reluctant to take milk away from infants.

Yea..we used to have one small cup of.water at lunchbreak and that was it.
There again my ds barely drinks at school as limited opportunity to go for a wee!

And we are becoming more obese

of course there is a connection it’s not just that we eat more processed foods it’s that we have to be stuffing our faces all the time

I have been guilty of believing ds needs to snack when really he doesn’t it’s ok to be a little hungry for a while but it does sometimes make us grumpy and no one wants to deal with a grumpy child

Never thought of it as such. Milk is a drink, snacks are things you eat. But it doesn’t really matter.

I disagree there, I don't think people used to be as hydrated as they needed to be for optimum health. There's better awareness of hydration now.

Well it does when you're adamant your never had snacks...when I fact you drank milk, which is food, and you had it between meals, and therefore it is/was a snack.

And are you honestly saying you never ever once ate a bit of fruit, had a biscuit with a cuppa, had a slice of cake, ate a crumpet etc between meals /after last main meal if the day? Because that would have been extremely unusual.

It has calories, fat, nutrition. It's more than plain water.
By that notion a smoothie or protein shake isn't a "snack" either!

We didn’t have ‘cuppas’ at all really. My mum wasn’t a tea drinker and coffee back then was a bit more of an unusual drink at least in our house. We drank squash mostly. Tea with the 6 pm meal.
Honestly can’t remember the pattern with fruit but no cakes or biscuits between meals at all.
Breakfast was cereal, lunch soup and cheese and crackers. Don’t remember biscuits being around much. Cake for pudding but not surplus. Tea as a meal was high tea at 6 pm. Never tea and cake at 11am or 4pm.
When we had pocket money we bought crisps from time to time.
Supper late in the evening wasn’t the pattern.
We weren’t hungry or malnourished a bit on the solid side really. 3 proper meals, that was it.
Not very unusual for the time. Tea with cake was never on offer at friends visited between 4 30 and 6pm. Maybe squash.
Different world, the mid 60s -70s.
Not being difficult, never thought of school milk as food. Maybe it was.
i’m late 50s vintage.

Some of us (children who are in pre school) don’t have another meal after lunch midday. The pre school only offers them some fruit before pick up time at 3:10-20pm. We live about 15 minutes drive from the pre school depending on traffic AND my child is always HANGRY and tired when he leaves school the snack keeps him going until we get in then it’s a rush to make dinner. Super active children need fuel

Just saying how I regarded it, that’s all.
Never had a smoothie or protein shake. Don’t see the attraction. I’d rather eat the fruit.

Not saying your wrong. Just saying in my family it wasn’t a thing.

I can't always stomach the texture of fruit and i sometimes prefer my food "liquid", especially if I've got morning sickness.
Also easier for me to have frozen fruit in and blend rather than risk wasting fresh fruit if i don't eat it before it goes bad, plus frozen obviously lasts longer.

I didn’t mean to imply they were bad, somehow, just never felt the need. I’m sure they’re lovely.

You must have loved in a parallel universe.

People often had tea and biscuits, or about of bread and butter etc around 4, or a slice of cake with tea mid morning at friends or whatever.

Maybe. My mother loathed tea as a drink so we didn’t drink it. I don’t think adult friends came at 11. That was full on housework, 4pm. Kids home from school.
Might have been different in other’s houses but all the mums went to work so I doubt it.
calling round for coffee or tea wasn’t part of our lives till later, after uni.
My friend was the vicar’s daughter. They had tea in the afternoon.

It's just copying others. Like people walking around with a coffee as if their life depended on it.

People get on a train or coach and start opening their packed food before it leaves the station.

The only good thing that woman did! The milk was DISGUSTING, left on the step all morning to get warm. We were forced to drink it. I hate it to this day.

Yeah the thought of the warm school milk makes me 🤢 too. I could only drink it in the winter.

I was brought up with no drinks beyond a quarter pint of milk/water at meals and no snacks. Constantly thirsty and constantly hungry.

Yes, I survived, knew no difference. But as soon as I got any money and freedom to buy my own stuff, I binged.

Binged and binged and binged.

If my DC are hungry or thirsty then they can eat/ drink. Of course within reason.

3 meals a day is a recent concept. Mammals have all kinds of patterns. Grazing and smaller meals works for us.

Can't believe my grandma used to tell me water was fattening.

@fanaticalfairy I'm a couple of years younger than @Sharptonguedwoman and I remember it as she did to be fair- if I went round a mates house I got a glass of squash if I was lucky and possibly 1 biscuit at the most .

Thanks. I was starting not to trust my memory!

I think the same about adults.

For children, I don't know enough about them. I suppose they may need to have smaller portions, but more often because of their size.

When I was a child snacking before lunch was discouraged - spoiling your apetite, but then secondary school had lots of things for sale in the morning break.
Something after school was normal, but that sort of coincided with the old 'tea' meal that came at 4 o'clock and was separate from dinner/supper and wasn't exactly the constant grazing that people do now.

It’s whatever the person is eating it as, nothing do with you.