The anti-snack brigade are self-righteous, moralising nonsense-merchants.

[SpangleTwangle]

My mate's very austere mother is like this. She goes on and on all the time about how people "never used to snack" and basically seems to believe that it is the sole reason why people are overweight and obese. It's also an angle people take on Mumsnet all the time and it is really bringing the eye-rolls from me.

Personally, I couldn't do without my snacks. All these people saying they don't need a snack must be sitting on their bottoms all day.

I do an active job (I don't sit down all day and I also run, walk, lift at work). I need my big bowl of porridge and banana for breakfast, my morning fruit snack at about 10 am (usually another banana) my work lunch (yesterday leftover chilli, salad, apple and orange). I get back at 4 or 5 depending, yesterday had 4 oat cakes and cheddar with chutney, then went to the pool with the kids to swim until 6, then I made our dinner which was white fish and bean stew, new potatoes, broccoli. I had a small piece of a cake I made at about 10pm. FYI I am also LOSING weight (6.5 stone so far, over 3 years), I write down everything I eat. Yesterday's calorie count was 1800, with 2 snacks.

The anti snack thing is just self righteous twaddle, you can spread your food out how you want, I find if I listen to my body and eat when I am hungry I am less likely to over eat, and if I hadn't had my oatcakes there is no way I would have managed taking the kid's swimming (they had a snack too, peanut butter on toast and bananas)

It's not about how often you eat, it's about how much you eat, how much exercise you get, and obviously what you're snacking on. But that said- I have gone through periods of time where those snacks were small bags of crisps/KitKat's etc and still lost weight as calories were equivalent.

Absolutely I overhauled my lifestyle. I'm unfortunately someone who can't carry excess weight easily, I was facing deteriorating health and mobility and at a lower BMI than many. Genetics can be unfair. Actually losing the weight has made me more empathetic to my past self, and to others struggling, not less. At my activity level I "should" have been able to eat what I was eating without continuing to be fat, however I don't fit that particular average. I was bloody hungry and miserable at points over the last 3 years, but being alive and mobile for my kids was compelling. It's been hard though and I couldn't do it for a long time as I didn't have the mental or physical capacity. I couldn't have done it without snacks... And those snacks have been on a long journey from custard creams to oatcakes!

Different things work for different people. I prefer to eat little and often. I snack during the day but don't eat very large meals. I get reflux and eating smaller portions more often works for me. I wouldn't know what many other people's eating habits are though as I'm not interested. Some people on MN seem to be obsessed with the dietary habits of others.

Lay off the fake tan and wearing five mismatched layers at once and you'll have sorted the wardrobe issue without needing to get your digs in.

Snack culture is an issue - individual eating of snacks not a problem. I am baffled by the need to give toddlers a snack the minute they have to wait or travel - many do before hunger has been mentioned and it’s reflexive rather than essential. Such a difference between a well timed banana and another pack of crisps. The munching through theatre and the sheer volume of high calorie snack food everywhere isn’t doing us any good. I love a snack - I would be better without them too unless I made better choices like you OP!

I think old people forget that they did indeed eat between main meals when given the opportunity!

Just have to read Enid Blyton etc the kids are constantly eating berries and taking cake with them etc

Do they forget they used to have hot chestnuts for sale in the streets in the winter and the like, not exactly your main meal....

And they forget that they were given pocket money and spent it on sweets....

I imagine you burned about 900 Cals getting worked up about the anti-snack ‘brigade’, aka your friend’s Mum

Do what works for you.

Agree with this, i grew up on a very austere regime, periods of deprivation but then having to finish your plate regardless of desire to prevent waste. Iv been pretty disordered with food ever since. Recently i've given myself permission to just eat when hungry and FUEL my activities, i've lost a lot of weight this way.

It’s wrong to generalise either way. It all depends on level of activity and content of meals. Your way works for you - bully for you!

However, I agree with the poster who said the problem is that many children seem to expect to eat something every couple of hours as a matter of course because they fancy it, rather than wait until they’re hungry, so they get into the habit of eating snacks even when their body doesn’t need them.

If I ate what you do op I’d be the size of a house. That’s a huge amount of food for my lifestyle. I do not snack, I didn’t as a kid either, no one did, at most you got 1-2 plain biscuits coming in from school but my mum rationed those to 1 on special occasions! My own dc were not given snacks routinely and as adults do not snack, it’s a habit thing. A piece of fruit mid morning is absolutely fine, but for those of us who are above ideal weight, it is not advisable to eat more

Haha I bloody wish. I find her amusing, she's old so gets a pass, it was actually the "don't give them any snacks, my children have never had a snack in their lives" replies on a thread here about saving money on food shops that had me write this... I've even raised my heartrate, I'm just bored and it seems to be something that some people are incredibly opinionated about, so I knew I'd get an entertaining number of replies.

I grew up in the 60's and didn't have "snacks", neither did my friends. We'd have a bag of crisps or a penguin biscuit occasionally as a treat but eating between meals wasn't a thing for most kids. But then, we always had breakfast (porridge, a boiled egg or poached eggs on toast for example), lunch would be a cooked school meal or a packed lunch and then always a substantial home cooked evening meal eaten together around the table. My mum always did a homemade pudding after dinner too. Some kids might have a mug of horlicks before bedtime but that was about it. There was no obesity and I don't remember anyone talking about snacks. But then, there weren't any "manufactured" snacks anyway and we were always out and about playing, so not at home thinking about food. Also, people generally had less money then, so if there were biscuits and cake etc in the house they had to last.

A long time ago I worked on a well known snack brand.

Their internal (ie for local distributors not for the public) brand promotional literature was very clear that they saw the big advantage of food and especially snacks over products like toothpaste or washing powder was that there wasn't a natural limit on consumption - people only need to wash clothes when they are dirty but they can aways be persuaded to eat just a little bit more. And they were open that their strategy was to encourage more snacking habits.

Yeah, they're more my idea of a snack than a couple of oatcakes.

Your original post reads a bit like a humblebrag about how healthy your diet is - which it is, as you know.

It's snacking on sweets, over-sweet chocolate, sugary or over-sweetened drinks, super-moreish salted snacks high in unhealthy fats etc that makes people overweight.

But once someone is an adult, it's up to them what they eat. I wish they wouldn't market these things to kids and teens though.

There’s snacking and then there’s snacking. A few rice/oat cakes are one thing. A box of Maltesers would be quite another

God I miss chocolate hobnobs, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, and I'd eat them if it is wasn't now medically necessary for me to avoid saturated fat and sugar.

If this is a reference to Wigan Pier, he made the point that the working class are more inclined towards junk food because their lives are shit basically and if you feel like shit, are you more likely to go home and eat a carrot or cake? He was right, as with many things.

I’m half French, that side of the family hates snacking. It’s very much engrained in their culture to eat humongous meals but no snacks. I have said similar on other threads and had people who are not French tell me this is inaccurate but it’s definitely the case in my family… They possibly incidentally don’t have weight issues whereas my British side do, and they do snack.

That is not to say I agree with the link between snacks and obesity, just that the French side have a completely different attitude towards the act of eating. I’m always busy so I eat on the go constantly, I rarely sit down to cherish my food and usually wolf it down between other tasks. My French Grandma would seethe at me if she knew. They like to sit and have a full three course meal as a family but like every meal, not just dinner.

That said, I’m not obese and I do snack. I need to snack. My Dad would say this is because I don’t eat adequate meals and he’s probably right but I’m time poor! If I don’t snack between breakfast and lunch, my stomach starts growling loudly and it’s super embarrassing. If I don’t eat between lunch and dinner, I get lightheaded and dizzy.

Totally agree with this. it comes across as patronising too, assuming other people don't know that eating more than your body needs makes you fat, no matter when you eat.

Sorry if it sounded braggy, it was just my actual day. The anti-snackers however do not seem to give much weight to the kind of snack, they are against ALL SNACKS and there are a couple of those posters on here. My point is that snacks can work for a healthy diet, but my further point is that you can STILL have a healthy diet and even lose weight with some occasional treats... You can even have no snacks. Health has some general rules and looks different for different people and snacking is not evil.

It's been on a long journey, my diet, and it only looks this healthy now because I've had to give up biscuits, butter, white carbs, sugar, for serious medical reasons. I don't brag about that but I kind of wish I'd known I was going to end up having to be so careful as I might have resigned it in a bit earlier... One year ago (I can look this up as I've logged everything forEVER it would seem) I was still losing weight but my snacks were as below.

Breakfast- banana seeded chocolate flapjack (home made with ALL the butter), sugared coffee 231 calories
Morning snack- mini KitKat, banana 180 calories
Lunch- Leftover teriyaki salmon, king prawns, veg 279 calories
Afternoon snack white toast x2 and butter 313 calories
Dinner- Daal, Okra Masala, rice 419 calories

Still snacking, still healthy, and still actually losing weight at that point in my life...

I'm only assuming this because this is how people behave. Saying "snacking is the problem" "lack of movement is the problem" "processed food is the problem"... All of these things are problematically simplistic really and sweeping statements. The problem(s)" are different for each person... Calories in and out obviously but that varies from person to person too (as I know all too well)

I don’t understand how people eat fruit if they don’t snack?

I sometimes have fruit with breakfast but usually I’ll have something like an apple mid morning and then an orange in the evening.

I don’t fancy them after I’ve eaten a meal and so unless I have them as a snack then I’d likely not eat them.

Obviously if you’re grazing on cakes and chocolate constantly throughout the day then you’re going to put on weight but a KitKat and apple a day isn’t going to make a massive difference.

Anyway, I'm off for an ostentatiously healthy, humble braggy banana.

There are quite a lot of closet orthorexics on here who like nothing better than to tell people that anyone who eats over 1,000 calories a day is the reason for the obesity epidemic.

These are the same people who post in painful detail about their food intake and get a weird little smug buzz from telling other people that they’re eating too much.

Like most of these topics it should be based on common sense. Obviously healthy snacks (whole grain bread or fruit) are better than biscuits or crisps and obviously someone with an active lifestyle can afford to cut themselves more slack than someone who is desk bound or already overweight.

Any hard line restrictions on food, unless mandated by a doctor, are usually silly and self defeating.

I’ve considered posting about this exact thing. It’s interesting that when people talk about not snacking they combine it with ‘decent’ main meals. I’ve never been able to eat the amount of food I see many people have as a meal. When eating out I struggle with 2 courses, let alone three, and often just have the main meal with some left over. So I snack to ensure my body has the calories it needs across the day. And, shock horror, this will include cake, crisps, biscuits, etc., if I want them.

Recently I was in a situation where I couldn’t snack and the only thing available was the meals. This didn’t lead to me significantly increasing what I ate at meal time, so I lost several pounds over two weeks (not a good thing) and I spent a lot of time hungry.

You just have it with the meals 🤷‍♀️

Banana with your porridge

It's a pretty standard to have a sandwich, an appleand a yogurt or bit of cheese or whatever for your lunch.

Dessert is apple pie or something