The constant feeding / snacking of children

[Lordofthebantams]

At swimming lessons tonight I've sat next to two children chomping their way through a packet of crisps and a packet of chocolate biscuits at 4pm. ( No eating on the poolside but never mind that, the little darlings need some salty junk).

We had a day out with friends on Tuesday at a farm park and kids are being handed food every 5 minutes.

You go down the street and everywhere you look the toddlers in buggies have their little hands stuffed in packets of puffs or gripping a biscuit.

It's no wonder we have such chubby children everywhere.

I have seen parents at buffet type meals and carvery loading their children's plates and desserts with an amount of food a small adult would struggle to eat. My daughter-in-law allows the grandchildren a small morning snack and a small afternoon snack. They survive!

Children should get NO snacks whatsoever. They should just eat their meals and that should be enough. If we banned snacks there would be a lot less childhood obesity and obesity in general.

Nonsense.

Humans across the globe have been snacking for centuries.

Why make them wait ten minutes for no reason?

It's different if you're driving home and there's no food in car ... Fine wait ten minutes. But to make them wait 10 minutes for no real reason seems a weird power play 🤷

No, if we banned ultra processed food there would be a lot less childhood obesity. Children have small stomachs and generally burn a lot of energy, there is nothing wrong with a child having a nutrient dense snack to fuel them between meals.

Obesity leads to a range of other problems, including but not limited to diabetes and heart disease. It's not just a number on a chart, designed to make obese people feel bad.

Good for you, when do you get your medal?

I think everyone knows that obesity increases your risk of multiple diseases?!

the point is, there is this weird idea that an obese person is someone who needs a bariatric dental chair, or to be craned out of their house. A poster can’t believe 1 in 5 children leave school over weight

because obese isn’t what they think it is. It’s their mate who wears size 16 clothes, it’s the stocky kid at swim club. It’s the middle aged spread.

We were recently at a little singing show put on by a private local singing teacher to showcase her students. It was a 45 minute show which started at 6:45. One family had their eldest of 3 children in the show and two younger (around 7 & 10 ) I would say with them in the small audience. After their daughter performed they gave their two younger children a huge bag of crisps each which they sat and ate through the rest of the show. The whole video of my daughter performing has the sound of rustling crisp packets and the crunching of crisps in open mouths. We were sat behind them and it completely ruined the whole show for me. Even the video taken by the teacher by the stage has the rusting crisp packet sound. I can’t understand people sometimes. It was only a 45 minute performance, could they really not go that long without food?

I felt the same when I first had a baby - felt judgy at all the snacking. But then when my kids were between about 2 and 5 I realised why it was necessary - they still had small stomachs and got very grumpy and hangry between meals. Snacks were essential to keep them going! The toddler years were <hard> and snacks were a useful tool.

Now I have two stick thin and permanently ravenously hungry teen boys. Even after the biggest meal they are constantly grazing - but we don’t tend to buy junk so it is usually on nuts, fruit, yoghurts, cheese.

“Also in our house, food is something that happens sitting down at a table. Unless you go for a picnic, you sit properly to eat.”

@Lordofthebantams out of genuine curiosity why?

A lot of people espouse the importance of sitting down to eat at a table and proper table manners, but what does it teach or reinforce that you cannot get in other ways? You can spend time together as a family, or learn manners in other ways.

And the idea of sitting down at a table with cutlery to eat and formalised meal times is after all a very new habit for the human species. For most of human history people probably grazed and snacked in the day, maybe eating one bigger meal around the fire in the evening. The idea of a big breakfast, a sandwich at lunch and a big sit down dinner was invented during the Industrial Revolution because it benefited factory owners.

Just curious why it’s something you’ve chosen to emphasise for your family if you feel like it’s not the norm now?

I grew up in the 80s and 90s. My packed lunch was a sandwich, packet of crisps and a chocolate penguin bar every day.

My secondary school had vending machines full of chocolate and crisps that all of us used.

No it's not. It's having the guts ( pardon the pun) to stick to tried and tested methods.

With you up until size 16 and middle aged spread.

What tried and trusted methods?

Introducing new food to my kids happened mostly at home where, if they didn’t like it the cost impact wasn’t significant. If we went out to eat the kids would have something I knew they liked and would eat, and they tried food off mine of their dads plate. If they liked it, it went onto the list of things they’d order if we went out to eat.

Im guessing the parents had a better idea of whether their kids would eat a curry, or indeed a steak, than randoms on the internet. While I’ve never restricted my two to the kids menu, I also don’t give them free rein of the al a carte.

Tried and tested was family meals. The same thing for everybody. Slightly dull and repetitive. Obviously if somebody disliked a food or texture it was OK to not eat it.

Yeah I’ve never made more than one meal at night. Everyone gets to contribute to the menu for the week and I don’t purposely cook food that they don’t like, but I’m not doing 4 different meals. I’d hope the food isn’t dull or repetitive though.

63 here. Only ever got chocolate bars at Christmas, crisps on a Saturday night.
Yet my late MIL was ALWAYS shoving food at my DD. Awful.

The last made on this post made me laugh!!

I’m glad reading and playing works for your 4 year old. My 18m year old rips the books out of my hand and throws them on the floor after the first one. Toy cars keeps him entertained for about 5 minutes. I walk laps round the pool with him for another 10-15 minutes. Still another 10 minutes to fill - some snacks works perfectly. Seeing as he doesn’t throw them on the floor I’d assume he’s hungry. So what’s wrong with feeding him there to buy some quiet time instead of feeding him at home???

It is not that reasonable snacking that is the problem.
But what sort of unhealthy food they are eating. You type of good, balanced snacks are ideal.
Well done

Coming home from school and going for a swimming lesson DC would get a snack, usually a sandwich and yes some crisps (won't eat fruit) and then dinner when home.

But yes I do agree that some parents do seem a need to constantly feed DC; in waiting rooms, bus, instantly when picking up from school, in prams. It's all just a temporary distraction, usually while on a screen.

If you set a precedent doing this for all 'boring' situations, it becomes an expected habit and not a good one.

It's th same home with these cases and I've seen it all too often, kids being allowed to take a family size bag of crisps, 2L bottle of coke, packets of biscuits upstairs to eat having alrwady had dinner.

I'm no fun killer but DC eat downstairs, ask politely for snacks, we know what they're consuming.

More likely the parents didn’t have / want to spend the extra money on something they knew he wouldn’t eat and would waste and then still be hungry

The trouble with snacking is it takes the edge off your appetite.
if you snack a lot, you are never actually really really hungry when you sit down for your meal.
I noticed this a lot with my grandson, who seems to be constantly snacking and I don’t think he’s ever felt proper hunger in his life.

Slightly off topic but I popped out to Tesco during my lunch break to get stuff for dinner. Self check. The woman in front of me had a massive shop of entirely packet products. Boxed pizzas, frozen chips, packets of processed meat, squash and pop, kids crisps like monster munch, chocolate kids biscuits like penguins and clubs, everything was processed and in a packet. Not a single item of fresh food in her shop or any kind of ingredients for cooking. She clearly had children as much of her shop was child friendly snacks. The snack pandemic must be related to this - eating fake processed food is never going to fill you up?