In the seminar ‘Snacking among Children: Essential or Excessive?’ Dr. Jennifer Fisher shared her research on snacking among children and the factors that influence this behavior. She explained that snacking has been increasing among children since the 1970’s and is now accounting for a substantial portion of their daily energy intake. While the prevailing wisdom in this field is that snacking is healthy, even essential for children in order to meet energy demands of growth and development, Dr. Fisher’s research indicates the need for a better understanding of this behavior before we deem it such.
Dr. Fisher’s research focuses on factors that interact to influence snacking; parenting, the child’s appetite, food and nutrient intakes, and obesity. While she discussed each factor briefly, her research on parenting was most fascinating. In this area, Dr. Fisher seeks to understand parental definitions, goals, and practices related to snacking. Her findings indicate that the definition of snacking is extremely variable and is dependent on factors such as time of day, type of food being offered, and context in which the food is given. Some of her research shows that parents think of ‘snacks’ and ‘meals’ as distinct with ‘snacks’ being foods that require less preparation, offer less nutritional value and balance. Conversely, parents perceived ‘meals’ as time for making memories and connecting with their child.
According to the research, parents also cite a variety of reasons for offering snacks to their children that range from providing nourishment to using snacks as a reward for good behavior or incentive to change bad behavior. One of Dr. Fisher’s more recent studies indicated that the nutritional value of the snack depended on the reason it was being offered. For example, when parents offered a snack for reasons other than providing nutrition for their child, such as to control bad behavior, that snack tended to contain more solid fats and added sugars than a snack that was given because the child was hungry.
Although most of Dr. Fisher’s research is cross-sectional, the relationships between factors related to snacking and the possible health implications are evident. Her findings demonstrate the need for reevaluation of public health guidelines that promote snacking for young children. Improved guidelines may do more to inform parents of the role snacks play in a child’s overall diet, appropriate purposes for offering snacks and how to choose snacks based on nutritional quality. Further, before we can recommend snacking as a public health practice for children, we need much more information on the various factors that impact this behavior.
Until the research on this subject advances, practitioners should do their best to continue educating parents on appropriate foods to offer children both during meals and as snacks. It is also important to promote strategies that help parents understand the role of snacks as part of their child’s overall diet and nutrient intake. Developing one-pagers or brochures on these topics might a way to provide this information to parents, patients and consumers in an easily accessible manner.
Snacking is a unique subject in that it involves eating small amounts of food throughout the day that is typically regarded as “not real food.” I believe your post justifies the way people typically view snack food. They use it more as reward or punishment reason, than for just keeping yourself from starving. However, I view it as just a way to keep your metabolism going and keep your body functioning at its best. Sure there may be times you cannot eat a whole meal, but I believe that these snacks must still aim to be healthy just as in regular food. The only reason I would encourage to eat “snack food” would be in special or social occasions that do not come around that often. Here, this comfort food would be enjoyed and no one should have to worry about eating healthy at that point. Snacking is not the problem. The problem is food choice and replacing healthy food with snacks and also increasing overall caloric intake.
In relation to parenting, they should provide snacks often and try to use healthy foods. It should be given especially when kids spend a long time away from home in which their food intake may be reduced or they must wait a while to eat. Small snacking should be encouraged throughout the day, but every once in a while, children should snack on their favorites.
As a parent, I can relate to the daily challenges of not only controlling the nutritional options available and presented to my children, but also the challenges of being a positive role model for them to learn and mirror healthy choices. I do agree with Carly in that parental education would help, especially if you are not knowledgeable at all on recognizing healthy options (such as marketing/packing), reading labels, or preparing food. I have a brief background in some aspects of nutrition, though it is helpful, it is still difficult to avoid those less desirable snacks (added sugar/ more fat) at times. One thing that I have established in our home is always having fruits on hand on the occasions we are pressed from time. However, what I would love more information on is how to build the positive relationship with food? How to avoid using food as a part of the reward and/or punishment system?
This talk sounds like it was really cool and informative! The idea of snacking is super interesting and is definitely a current issue, probably for adults as well as kids. Many adults are under the impression that eating smaller meals/snacks throughout the day is healthier, but of course that depends on what they’re eating. Kids are no different, except that they have less of a role in deciding what they eat, especially the younger ones. What struck me most about your post, from a psychology standpoint, is parents using snacks as a reward for desired behavior. Did Dr. Fisher speak more on that? Using food in that way, whether it’s healthy food or not, causes kids to associate food with the wrong values and ideals. They eat something simply because it’s a reward, even if they don’t really like it or feel hungry. A big component in obesity for many people, kids especially, is this bad relationship with food. Did Dr. Fisher speak mostly to educating parents about choosing healthier snacks for their kids? I would argue there should be some education included in that on the dangers of using food for behavior modification.
Thanks, Carly! The talk was definitely interesting! It was great to see an expert talking about nutrition, as my background is almost exclusively in physical activity. It was enlightening to hear her discuss the research she does with parents to understand their attitudes toward and perceptions of snacking. Because she covered such a variety of information during the lecture, she did not elaborate further on the implications of these actions in terms of shaping a child’s relationship with food. I think you’re absolutely correct though. Food should be presented as nourishment and not associated with a certain type of behavior. It was unfortunate that she did not have time to share her thoughts on the implications of this research and what it could mean for practitioners. In my opinion, this type of research sets the stage for the development and dissemination of better “guidelines” for parents to follow when thinking about snacking and how it fits into their child’s overall diet.
In a way I thought it was really interesting how similar these issues are to those we see in physical activity. For example, I think many people have the misconception that in order to be of any benefit, exercise has to be strenuous and uncomfortable, thus reducing their drive to engage in any type of physical activity. These misconceptions mirror those seen about snacking; that it’s just a snack so it won’t impact a child’s overall health as long as they are getting healthy meals. In addition, the idea of using snacks to encourage certain behaviors reminds me of the fact that in some situations, physical activity is used as a way to manage behavior. It is used to punish bad behavior or performance (such as athletes being made to run for not meeting a goal), and also as a bargaining chip (such as a teacher taking away a child’s recess time for disruptive behavior in class). Using these health behaviors in this way puts children at a disadvantage and hinders their ability to form positive healthy relationships free of bias.
Ginny, I think it’s awesome that you’re so excited to learn about nutrition. As I also have a background exclusively in PA, I love that this class provides us with an opportunity to learn about nutrition. Exercise and nutrition definitely go hand in hand and I can’t entirely understand why even intro classes aren’t required in our program as well. That’s a discussion for another day.
You’re completely right about similar patterns emerging in nutrition and PA. I think that’s why initiatives, like Exercise is Medicine, that try to encourage physical activity in all settings and for all kinds of reasons is crucial. The problem may be that we’re trying to change those ideals and misconceptions in college aged and older adults. By then it may be too late! Perhaps that’s why so many PA interventions show minimal effects and changes in behavior. It’s incredibly difficult to change behaviors based on ideals that have been solidified and encouraged since college. I think the ultimate goal of PA and nutrition interventions should be to encourage healthier associations with PA and nutrition throughout childhood, which would engrain those values for life. Which brings us back to the importance of snacking for children. At that age, it’s totally the responsibility of the parents and any kind of guidelines for them is helpful. In science research, we’re all so focused on our specific interests and expertise, that we don’t often give comprehensive overall guidelines that touch on multiple aspects of a behavior. Maybe public health is one of those fields that could bridge all the research together.
Hi Carly,
I think you are absolutely right that we have to do a better job of encouraging healthier associations with food and activity in order to develop and foster healthy relationships with these aspects of health throughout the life-span. I agree that public health may be able to help this mission by providing guidance and recommendations but I also think there is a great deal of work to be done on the societal level. For example, we already have dietary and physical activity guidelines and while these recommendations are incredibly important to establishing what constitutes a healthy diet or level of activity, the work to actually achieve these recommendations has to be done at the individual level in order to see drastic changes. I think one key piece of the puzzle that has been missing, but luckily is now being considered, is the way we design and interact with our communities. For example, our society, in almost every aspect, was built for cars. Not bikes or pedestrians, but motor vehicles. As we discussed in class yesterday, this creates many barriers, particularly regarding safety, to active transportation and activity in general. Not only is it not safe to actively commute, but the way our cities and communities are designed often means that the places we need to go (work, home, grocery store, parks, etc.) are located too far apart for active transportation to be feasible. In addition, if you think about a community, what would it be like if you took every fast food restaurant and replaced it with a produce stand or farmer’s market. Like I said, these societal factors have incredible influence on our levels of physical activity and the quality of our diets and I can only hope that we continue to see the recent trend towards trying to make our people healthier by supporting them with healthy communities.
Ginny, you are absolutely right about half the job needing to be done on the societal level. Of course, we know that on a community level money has way too much influence. Especially in things like fast food restaurants. I think the other main issue, which we talk about in class too, is the disconnect between the scientists and researchers who work on things like the PA and nutrition guidelines and the lay public who have to put those guidelines into action. Just telling people doesn’t change their actions. It’s almost like we have to trick people into doing the healthy thing. Community designs have to make it as easy as possible for people to eat right and be active because otherwise they won’t do it. There’s such a disconnect between what we know is right for us and how we act. Again, I don’t know too much about the public health field, but I imagine this is an area they are working on. Too often though, it seems that we read articles where participants say they prefer the healthier option over the other but it doesn’t translate to their actions. If it had an easy solution, we’d all be out of a job haha.