In a seminar titled “Snacking among children: essential or excessive?”, Dr. Jennifer Orlet Fischer described some of the problems associated with children’s snack recommendations. Prevailing wisdom from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the United States Department of Agriculture is that snacks are essential to children’s nutrition. There are even federally funded programs to pay for snacking, even though there is not a universal guideline for children’s snacking recommendations. There is currently very little data on young children and snacking. Dr. Fischer presented recently found data over the subject.
The first presented study’s aim was to qualitatively characterize low-income parents’ philosophy of child snacking. What she found seems to be a standard consensus: there is no consensus on what snacking is. Dr. Fischer’s data presented that parents’ idea of what snacking is varied widely. In almost all studies, snacking is self-reported, and so if ‘snacking’ means different things to participants than to researchers, how can accurate data be collected? In the broader scheme of nutrition education, this data insinuates that snacking recommendations cannot be properly followed because they are interpreted differently by different people.
Another interesting facet of the presentation was about the children actually doing the snacking. It was found that, while increasing portion size typically resulted in a child eating more, this was not always the case. A child’s temperament will change how they’re influenced by things such as visual cues. This means a child’s attitude may dictate their food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, satiety responsiveness, and more, all of which affect a child’s risk for obesity. This poses an interesting question. Does snacking cause obesity or does obesity cause snacking? While previous data suggests over-consumption of calories from snacks can lead to obesity, the data Dr. Fischer provided may suggest that obese children are just more susceptible to over-snacking. So we are left wondering, is over-snacking a cause of obesity or a symptom of obesity? Are snacking recommendations needed to help control obesity rates, or are children’s attitudes toward food and snacking more important?
From the seminar presented, we must now consider if universal snacking guidelines for children are even possible. Not only will standardized recommendations be interpreted differently by parents, but a child’s attitude towards snacking will change their snacking behaviors regardless of outside factors. Individual counseling is needed to properly integrate parent’s and children’s attitudes, but snacking needs to be addressed on a nation-wide scale. Can we create a universal guideline that will do no harm regardless of guardian or child attitude? The need is understood, but a practical solution is not easily found.
Alexis,
To answer your question from the second paragraph, I think that snacking causes obesity more often, and is much easier because of over-snacking. Eating while sitting, especially while watching tv, makes it nearly impossible not to over eat. However, today’s on-the-go lifestyle fits frequent snacking instead of the traditional “three square meals”. Growing children need proper nutrients in order to fully develop and could benefit from snacking, just like adults, if they are not getting sufficient nutrients daily from their traditional three meals.
It is very difficult, nearly impossible, to establish accurate snacking guidelines. Is this a snack to hold you over in-between meals, or an on-the-go snack that pretty much replaces a meal? Is this serving size for a 6-8-year-old child, or for a 30-year-old adult who is trying to gain muscle mass? Guidelines/recommendations for snacking would end up being more general than the national physical activity weekly minutes’ guideline.
From foodandnutrition.org, I found that we snack twice as often as we did in the late 1970’s and that today our favorite snacks are chips, chocolate, and cheese. Fresh fruit ranked fifth in popularity. The choice of what type of snack is the most important decision. For parents, proper nutrition education might be beneficial and more specific for their family than any national guideline or recommendation. Snacking can be used to help control appetite or contribute to recreational eating and excess calories. Snacking can boost diet quality or lead to excess intakes of solid fats, added sugars, and sodium. The balance of wise snack choices, instead of sodium filled sandwich meat and cheese, can contribute to a better, healthier nutritional intake.
Considering how much politicking goes on in Washington D.C., it seems strange that the federal government funds snacking programs without any recommendations to provide direction. However, if we take a look at the eligibility and nutritional requirements of the National School Lunch Program Afterschool Snack Service (https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/afterschool-snacks-faqs), it is clear that these programs are meeting a need and basing their requirements on basic nutrition principles. Just because no concrete recommendations exist for snacking does not mean that it is acceptable not to act. Besides, kids are almost completely subject to their environment and the people they are surrounded with because they are often not capable or mature enough to make choices for themselves. Thus, if kids are going to snack, it seems reasonable that they would do so in a supervised, regulated setting that provides nutritious food choices. Additionally, influencing children to eat healthy from a young age could have a positive impact on their future health and wellness when it comes time to makes their own dietary choices. Ultimately, I believe that this kind of approach will leave children with a beneficial outlook and perception on snacking and food selection which almost certainly results in a greater favorable effect on their attitude toward food and their future health outcomes as compared to a non-individualized, nationwide recommendation.
Hi Alexis!
You mention that snacking is a topic that needs to be addressed on a nation-wide scale. While we are FAR from being able to say when/how much snacking is “best for kids,” we can definitely say that conventional processed snack foods are largely not good for kids. I strongly believe that parents should be given resources to help them identify beneficial snack foods for their children. For example, two of my favorite veggie snacks are baby carrots and cherry tomatoes because they are portable, bite sized, and help me reach my recommended daily servings of vegetables. Parents need to know that fruit flavored products are not the same as fruit, cracker products are often loaded with salt and fat, and juices are not much better than soda when it comes to calories and risk of cavities. I think it is important not to feel at a loss in the “snacking debate” just because we don’t have perfect evidence-based recommendations for snacking. The nuances of nutrition research make it very difficult to study such a big question. However, we do know that fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and low fat dairy are nutrient dense snack options. Snack items using these components are most likely going to confer a health benefit to the child rather than contribute to obesity since these are nutrient dense items (not empty calories).
Hi Alexis, thanks for a great post! I attended this lecture as well and as a physical activity researcher, I found it fascinating to see the issues that nutrition researchers are facing. I completely agree with your conclusion that it is going to be extremely difficult to establish national guidelines or recommendations when there is such a disconnect between parent/child and research perspectives on what snacking actually is. Perhaps a future direction may be to try and help parents understand what healthy food choices are in general, and then provide information on how those foods can be used or offered as snacks. Contrary to what many parents in these studies reported, snacks don’t have to be of lower nutritional quality and they can be easy to prepare if information on how to do so is available.