The Cult of Snacking: Are Your Kids Obsessed? Are You?
Let me say this right upfront: I love snacks. I love chips, both potato and chocolate. I love little, picky things, finger food, cheese and crackers, nuts, trail mix… I love the good kind of snacks (baked pita chips dipped in hummus) and the bad kind (day-glo cheez doodles that turn your fingers orange).
But. I have come to believe that, for this generation of kids, snacking has become a sort of religion. There’s a belief in snacks, a cult of snacks and snacking. Many parents simply do not leave the house without arming themselves with snacks. You’d think when we venture out of our front doors, none of us has a clear idea of when we might return for a nourishing meal, or whether we might, in our travels, pass a place where foodstuffs might be readily available. (It’s not 40 years wandering in the desert, folks, it’s a playdate and a couple of errands in town!).
When I first became a parent, I didn’t pack snacks. First, of course, because I was breastfeeding my son; lucky me, I didn’t even have to bother packing bottles. But when he started eating food, and I was going to be out of the house for a while, I packed what might be necessary for his meals. And yes, I did include A Snack in his daily mealtime schedule, but A Snack is different from snacks. A Snack is a scheduled pause for a bit of food to tide tiny tummies over in the long stretch between, say, lunch and dinner. Thinking it’s snack time? Ask yourself these questions:
- Is the snack filling a gap? If Junior didn’t have the strawberries you gave him with his breakfast waffle, then fruit or 100% fruit juice is an ideal snack an hour or two later–sneaks in the nutrition he missed earlier.
- Is the snack timed well? Ideally, space snacks 2 or so hours before the next meal. A 10 am nosh? Great. A hearty snack 15 minutes before lunch? Not so much.
- Is the snack to satisfy hunger? See above. Kids do need snacks to keep energy up and spread nutrition throughout the day. They don’t need them to stave off boredom or round out a playdate or as rewards, except in moderation (think: a lollipop after that shot at the doctor’s office!).
So that’s A Snack. But generic, unspecific snacks are non-scheduled, often bribe-related, habits. In the car? Have a snack! At the library? Snack time! Need to spin through Target or the mall for a birthday gift? Better bring a snack because he might get hungry.
Really?
My first encounter with the Cult of Snacking came shortly after my second son was born. At home with a three-week-old and a 2-year-old was grating on me, so I took both boys to the local Barnes and Noble. I figured I’d let Daniel tool around in the kids’ section (they have a great Thomas the Tank Engine table there), and then I’d buy a magazine and head home before the baby needed nursing again. When we arrived, an employee informed me that story time was about to begin. Story time! Sure, we’ll go.
I steered the stroller over, and sat Daniel down to listen. And just as the reader opened her first book, half the kids in the audience cracked open lunch boxes and snack containers and juice boxes. That was the end of that — my boy became far more mesmerized by his neighbor’s goldfish and fruit snacks than he was by the story. Then the baby woke up, pooped, and cried, so that was the end of story time for us.
Since then I’ve fought the battle of the snacks. I pack three snacks a day, along with lunch (one for Daniel in first grade, and TWO for James in pre-K). Why two? He has a morning snack, then lunch, and he’s home by 3:30. Can’t he wait? The answer is that yes, of course he can, but it’s part of the ritual.
Perhaps I’m spoiled by having boys who, for the most part and within certain picky parameters, eat their meals (and so probably have less need, as they grow, for quite so many snacks to “fill in” their diet). I do know that plenty of moms complain that their kids don’t eat their dinner. Um, could it be because they had a juice box and a bowl of pretzels and goldfish at 4pm? Just a thought!
What’s your snack stance?
May 15, 2009 @ 9:33 pm
My kids are 2 and 6 and they don’t get a snack during church anymore, but they complain about it because older kids up to age 12 (!!) are still snacking out of boredom. My oldest says she’ll shrivel up and die if she doesn’t get a snack, too. I tell her, if you can’t last an hour without food, then you deserve to shrivel up and die.
–Another mean mom
May 15, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
I was talking with a nutritional anthropologist for an article I’m writing and she really hammered home the point that nowadays, kids’ eating has very little structure to it. There’s no set time or place to eat–we just let kids wander around with food all day. I used to feel bad about always being the parent who forgot to pack Goldfish crackers until I started thinking about my childhood…did my mom pull out a baggie full of crackers for me every time we sat still for half a second? NO! Did I starve? NO!
We allow an after-school snack and an evening snack but the rule is we eat it at the same time (just about) each day and it is eaten at the table. No wandering around the house or sitting in front of the TV munching. For my big boys I will occasionally make an exception for a piece of fruit but I think that’s because I haven’t quite gotten a handle on their rapidly-expanding appetites just yet!
May 16, 2009 @ 1:13 am
Thank you. Snacks have a place but I often leave the house without a snack for my son. He’s now 6, but I’ve been doing this for a very very long time. I’ve been glared at by other parents as I explain to my son, as we’re leaving the park or the library or wherever to go home and have lunch that it’s okay to be hungry sometimes and that he can wait 20 minutes until lunch to eat. And you know what else? I don’t pack a snack for the ride home from school. He can wait the extra 5 – 10 minutes until we’re home to eat. At a table. Like a civilized person. There is no need, I explain, to eat in the car when you are on your way home. Where is all the food. In fact, it’s a bit weird and compulsive.
– yet another mean mommy
May 18, 2009 @ 10:37 am
thanks Molly! Yes, that snacking-while-driving-five-minutes-home kills me. Snacking plays into the whole culture of instant gratification, which I suspect may be the subject of my next blog post, so stay tuned!
May 16, 2009 @ 8:58 am
I totally agree about the Cult of Snacking, Denise. It’s madness. It’s too late for my kids–they are snackaholics at 8 and 12–but if I could do it over again, I would. (Although, to be fair, my 12yo does seem like a natural grazer and that works best with her metabolism.)
May 16, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
Hungry children are very good eaters.
May 16, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
I absolutely bring snacks with me if we’re out for most of the day because I’m all CHEAP like that and I have already spent my money on good snacks I’m sure as heck not buying the overpriced food at the zoo! If I think we’re going to be out and about during a time that the kids might be hungry, I try get them to eat before we go…. or if I can’t, I grab some snacks.
I do like some grazing during the day because *personally* it means I eat less. If I’m grazing, the kids like to graze too. And at day care and school they have regular snack times so I think their bodies are set up for those regular nosh times.
May 18, 2009 @ 10:40 am
Heather, so true — I’d always rather pack my own snacks then buy what’s available “out there.” We took them to the zoo in Florida last year when visiting my parents, and we were the ones with the fully-stocked picnic basket with lunch, drinks and snacks, so we could avoid spending ungodly amounts on bad concession food. That’s a little habit I inherited from my mom, A.K.A. The Fruit Lady. Regular noshes (such as at daycare and school) are fine. But don’t get me started on some of the snacks I’ve seen at my older son’s first grade class (they have a morning snack, about an hour and a half before lunch). I’m packing water or juice and Cheerios or a fruit bar, and some kids have Yoohoo and Oreos!
May 18, 2009 @ 9:40 am
Count me in the snack camp. There are two main reasons I never leave the house without a couple of pretzel sticks and slices of apple. First, I blame teething. I swear, except for a two or three month reprieve after her first tooth sprouted at the ripe old age of 3-1/2 months, this child (now 16 months) has been working on a tooth pretty much every week. During which time she’s chewing on everything. I initially got teething biscuits to help her out, but they are disgusting and turn in to semi-solid goo almost immediately. Then we discovered pretzel sticks. Hard, feel good on the gums, portable, and aside from a couple crumbs that are easily swept away, not very messy. Second, she is mad for apples. Apple was her first real word, and she says it still probably 40 times a day. I give her an actual apple slice for every ten “ah-poo?”s, which means she snacks on apples four times a day give or take. While we’re waiting for breakfast to be ready, in the mid-morning, while she’s waiting for lunch, and in the mid-afternoon.
What I want to know is, what do you buy for young toddlers when you’re out and about and they get hungry? Do you carry a knife so you can cut up an apple you buy at the deli? And do you wash said apple in some magically appearing sink? And wouldn’t it be cheaper and healthier and easier to bring something from your own home instead of buying something on the road? I get that obligatory snacking is annoying, but I don’t get what’s annoying about leaving the house with food.
May 18, 2009 @ 10:35 am
Kate, thanks for your comment! Ah-poo — that’s so adorable! What you’re doing — packing up some palatable foodstuffs for your daughter so you’re not caught off-guard — isn’t, in my opinion, part of the Cult of Snacking. That’s just smart parenting. In my opinion and experience, when you are out and about with a toddler, all bets are off. And it’s hard to buy something for a toddler that’s healthy when you’re out, so you’re smart to pack stuff. When I talk about the obligatory snacking crowd, it’s the mom handing her whining child a baggie full of Goldfish, instead of doing something, anything, other than silencing the whinge with ready-at-hand empty snacks.
May 18, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
The snack culture can be so sneaky. It’s hard to go ANYWHERE these days without my kids being offered some kind of food, from free cookies at the bakery in the grocery store to candy at the bank to the ever-present snacks at Grandma’s house (today alone she gave them fruit snacks and frosted decorated choc. chip cookie. At 11 am).
May 18, 2009 @ 10:20 pm
OMG, I had the exact same reaction the first time I went to a Barnes & Noble storytime with my then-toddler (maybe younger) daughter. The snacking was outrageous and clearly aimed at appeasement alone. My daughter was fine with it because, um, she wasn’t hungry, but also because I’ve made a point since she was very young to educate her about food issues, including things like mindless snacking. But in subsequent storytimes the snacking got so distracting that the woman leading the storytimes actually banned snacks. Holy cow, you would have thought she’d told these mothers to stop nursing a starving infant. As such, that ban didn’t last long. That said, I’m actually one of those mothers who always has snacks with me, for myself and my daughter. But that’s because we are very conscious about what we eat, and rarely can find acceptable snack foods when we’re out and about. So I like to be prepared. But that’s entirely different.
Chris
June 7, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
I’ve wondered about this. I don’t have any kids and I get curious when I see kids at church with their snacks and their books and their toys. I’m Catholic, so it’s not like church is an all-day event. Can these kids really not go an hour without Cheerios? Can’t an 8-yr-old sit through Mass without a toy?
I don’t remember my mom packing snacks when I was a kid. We ate at the house. On long car trips, she brought sandwiches and bananas. But snacking to snack was not a thing.
June 15, 2009 @ 3:55 am
I’m with you here. Whenever I return to the US I definitely feel culture shock when it comes to snacking. I’ve found there is much less focus on snacks here in Japan where we live and much more focus on eating properly at meals. Little catering to preference, just expectations that children will eat nutritiously and properly and broadly. I suppose it’s a bit of an old-fashioned take on food, but I prefer it. You don’t see tons of children’s meals in restaurants either, or if you do, they tend to be smaller portions of adult meals with just a bit more variety.
It’s the same with toys too. You don’t see children going to doctor’s appointments with a bunch of toys etc. to distract them.
Great post! Lots of food for thought, ha ha.
Confessions of a Mean Mommy » Blog Archive » School’s Out For Summer… Why is That, Again?
June 24, 2009 @ 4:32 pm
[…] be rid of, such as sifting through endless papers and projects in backpacks, and prepping endless lunches and snacks. But I’d never let that on to my sons. School? It’s a […]
September 12, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
Mine was a mean mom. I will be a mean mom someday. Eating in a bookstore? No. Eating occurs at mealtime. You do not eat when you are bored. Shocked that no one said anything about promoting childhood obesity with bad habits.
September 14, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
This is a great post and discussion! My pet peeve is the “snack calendar” that is always thrust upon you the first moment of the first day of any organized kid activity, ie soccer, swim team etc.. I’m however a big fan of the after school snack. In our house cinnamon sugar sandwiches, milk, and fruit are favorites…it is a nice time to quietly reconnect with my daughter after a busy school day. It is also where I try weedle as much information about her day as possible. She is now a second grader, and her responses run along the lines of name, rank, and number!
Confessions of a Mean Mommy » Blog Archive » Snacking All The Time, In the NY Times
January 21, 2010 @ 3:03 pm
[…] Yeah, been there, said that. […]