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.

Constant grazing really annoys me. It's not surprising so many children hardly eat at mealtimes because they're full from the constant snacking. I know how hard it is to stick to three main meals and two snacks because I have a 5 year old who would happily spend the whole day snacking, but it's a part of parenting to enforce rules around food and one of them is that no one needs to eat every 20 minutes.

Fruit, bread sticks and rice cakes don't keep your blood sugar level though, they spike it because they're full of carbs and little else (i was really surprised to see this when I had a week with a glucose monitor. I'm not diabetic). So much 'professional' advice around food is actually bollocks.

Cheese or nuts would be much better although schools obviously don't allow nuts.

Just to clarify, I always send a snack to school, he doesn't always eat it. At preschool he wouldn't eat anything at all but he was only there for 3 hours at a time. He's 98th centile for height and a healthy weight so I don't think I need to be worried, although I hadn't realised it was recommended to give all children snacks!

Definitely recommended by our health visitor and school nurse. Yeah mine doesn't always eat his either, or his lunch for that matter, to desparate to run around with his friends. But like yours he's a big lad so I don't worry. I thought you meant you actively didn't offer snacks

But obviously lifestyle plays a huge role.
8am breakfast and 4:30 dinner is a very condensed eating schedule compared to the average. Most young children are having their breakfast well before 8am in order for their parents to drop them to childcare or before school club and commit to work, and then the flip side is the vast majority of families are not able to sit down for anywhere near a 4:30 window so inevitably snacking is more needed if children have an additional 3-4 hours during the days between main meals.

Is the issue here snacks or junk food?

I'd suggest it's both, @HotWheel5

There's nothing wrong with occasional snacks if a child's genuinely hungry - damn it there's nothing wrong even with junk food sometimes - it's the constant munching some do which seems so disturbing and does the real damage to metabolic health

There's also nothing wrong with a child feeling hungry if a decent meal's not too far off. Within reason it's a natural state, but tantamount to child abuse to some - ironically often those who seem relaxed about setting them up for a lifetime of obesity

I wonder whether snacking is encouraged by childcare settings and schools so they don't have to deal with grumpy children if they are a bit hangry?

But it seems to have got a bit extreme, with these implications that if your kid doesn't snack you're somehow damaging them. If a kid has never snacked and isn't getting hunger pangs/headaches, I don't see the problem? Some HVs act like it's virtually child abuse.

And poor quality meals and snacks that spike you're blood sugar actually make you hungry, which sets of a vicious cycle of snacking. If you eat good quality balanced meals you rarely need snacks.

Well I wouldn't be paying for steak for a kid who wasn't likely to eat it.... I'd give them a taste of mine so they can try and then maybe next time

Schools don’t have any additional snacking than they have done for at least the past 5 decades.
Childcare providers do one morning snack, almost always fruit, and an afternoon tea which is cheese and crackers, a toasted crumpet and crudities, beans and half a small potato in cold weather etc.

So your body reacted entirely normally. It can cope with those spikes so you learned nothing .

For a diabetic this information is valuable, if you’re not diabetic all it tells you is “when I eat carbs my blood sugar spikes in an entirely normal manner and returns to baseline in a normal manner too”

I ho early despair of non diabetics thinking they need to track their blood sugar. The Glucose Goddess has made a mint out of you all.

Bold of you to assume my kid doesn’t eat proper meals because she has plenty of snacks 😂. My daughter is 3, has 3 solid meals a day and would snack all day if I let her but yeah she does eat pretty much constantly if we’re in the house. She’s fit and active though and a healthy weight so it’s not something I get worked up about.

I hope people dont think this of my young child who has type 1 diabetes, snacking is often necessity to manage hypos or to avoid them.

I'm not against my children having "junk" crisps, sausage rolls, biscuits etc on occasion, but I must admit I do judge those parents I see walking to school with their kids in tow eating pringles, doritos, and the like for their breakfast! And yes it happens a lot! I saw one child eating a hotdog on the way to school last week which blew my mind.

She wasn't complaining about the time. She described the junk they were eating, and I think we can assume her own children are being offered something more healthy.as a snack.

Some posters have waved the OP off with 'it's society', but what is society in the context of poor diet and the resultant health issues? It's individuals en masse all making poor choices. Criticising individual choices is appropriate.

If you feel strongly enough have the balls to say something to the mum not talk shit about them on Mumsnet. People can’t pretend to care this much then not even say anything when you see it!

Absolutely hate judgey threads!!

Please f**k off back under the rock you crawled out from

In the context of a child bolting about a playground at speed it's very different to an adult sat at a desk all day.

Fruit? Jeez. That's a lot of sugar for your kids.

My kids are 20, 15 and 14 and snack fairly regularly. However they’re also ridiculously healthy, perfect teeth and slim (more meat on a dirty fork) maybe their snacks are faulty….

My kids snack all the time. They are as skinny and tall. Mind your own business. Some kids eat loads.

The ragebait be ragebaiting

I'm pretty sure I had a snack after swimming as a kid many moons ago. The chicken nuggets thing though, i absolutely refused to buy them for mine.

That was an incredibly quick turnaround from not caring at the start of your post, to wishing people didn’t give their children snacks at the end of your post.

No. Far too late to be the first.