French children don't snack

mandasalem

Americans don't typically eat four meals, either. If you put all of a child's-- or an adult's-- normal-sized snacks together, you'd probably end up with the fourth meal that this tale describes. Of course, some people might snack more than that fourth meal, but not those who are eating healthily otherwise. Snacking isn't the cause of obesity. What and how much we're eating is. It doesn't really matter when you're eating as much as what.

dbm037

I totally agree! I have been reading a lot about this for adults also. That is why many French women are so slim, They use smaller plates, eat slower, eat fresh foods, they don't go back for seconds, they don't deprive themselves of nothing, they eat for pleasure enjoying every bit! They eat what they want all in perfect moderation, French women avoid anything that demands too much effort for too little pleasure..French women don’t eat “fat-free,” “sugar-free,” or anything artificially stripped of natural flavor. They go for the real thing in moderation. French women don’t often weigh themselves, preferring to keep track with their hands, eyes, and clothes: “zipper syndrome.

French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat. I am an American with a French born mother. I need to adopt the French way.

SunnyDuckling

Certainly what has changed since I was a child is that I see friend's children no longer ask if they can have something... They just go into the kitchen, open a cupboard, take a bag of crisps or whatever and go upstairs.

I was expected to ask if I could have anything between meals and if it was too close to a proper meal the answer would usually be no. And "no" meant no! It would have been completely unacceptable and rude just to take something without asking.

There were only 2 fat girls in a class of 30 when I was in school, and I guess by today's standards they wouldn't be considered fat.

These points you've made are exactly the same conversations I have with my mama frequently. I since read in a later post that you are German - my family is Polish - so it makes sense that you have a similar viewpoint. We often discuss why it is I have such a trouble with losing weight or maintaining weight. I was the fat kid in primary school, but I was one of five in our class of 30. When ma was at school in Poland, there maybe were 5 for the whole year level (90 kids).

She also brings up the idea that there was no morning or afternoon tea at school, something she struggled with here in Australia. Given that main meal of the day was at "lunchtime" there was no need to eat more food. "Dinner" was a lighter meal in the early evening. If it was enough time between meals then the snack was carrot or apple. But only if I asked for something, never just to help myself.


Overall this has been an interesting thread to read and I've enjoyed seeing everyone's different cultural perspectives on eating routines. My ma will be gloating it up when I tell her she's not the only one to hold onto ingrained cultural food habits from the old country. :bigsmile:

3foldchord

My brother and I snacked a lot, and were thin. My kids snack a lot and are very skinny. I snack often now, and have never been overweight.
Correlation =/= causation

KeepOnMoving

As originally mentioned, French children have "four meals." So I think it is the types of food and quantity you eat that make a difference.

BeachIron

There are always these stories of what what country or another does as though this is the answer to what we as Americans are doing wrong. But when you look at various countries or cultures, you see people doing many different things and maintaining good weight and good health.

I don't believe you can tease out one aspect of a culture and say, aha! that's the answer! Most cultures evolved for hundreds if not thousands of years; they're made of multiple factors that fit together like gears. Then you have to factor in differences in human biology. Is the Mediterranean diet better for everyone, or just people of Mediterranean descent? How about the Japanese diet, a completely different way of eating? Unfortunately, we don't yet have the science to definitively answer many questions about optimal diet or even about weight loss.

There are probably cultures that do a lot of snacking and that have lower obesity levels than the U.S. Doesn't necessarily tell us much, unfortunately.

Very well said.

pcastagner

Sorry, "Le Goûter" is French for "the snack".

In my family and all over Québec it is called "la collation", which etymologically gives you more of the sense that it is something happening "between meals".


Just because you plan it out doesn't mean it isn't a snack, and there are plenty of fat French kids these days, btw. Actually, I saw one just the other day at the hot spring. And I'm in Japan at the moment.

michelle7673

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/23/dining/where-all-paris-can-be-found-indulging-in-the-afternoon.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

"They don't snack, of course.".....

arrseegee

I'm from New Zealand and as kids my sisters and I snacked because we were extremely active - I swam 20 hours a week, my sisters did ballet (12 hours/week) and artistic diving (5 hours). When I stopped swimming I stopped snacking. Many of our friends also snacked but didn't exercise, and they were much bigger than we were. These days I live in Germany and people here don't snack much either, and in comparison to NZ they are less overweight. This was a really interesting article, thanks for sharing!

0somuchbetter0

I lost 6.5 lbs on vacation in South America this summer. Why? No snacks. When in Rome...

crandos

Ive ate a few times with french people and they take a billion years to finish their food maybe thats their secret?

Kirsten2304

I'm from Germany and I very rarely snacked. When I worked as an Au Pair in the US after finishing high school, I found it funny that my kids snacked so very much and also that you can buy everything in snack size, for example raisins. You wouldn't find that here.

cityjaneLondon

I spend quite a bit of time in France and can say the OP's opinion is generally true. There is bit of snacking creeping in with changing work habits, stressed mothers etc, but generally there is a much better attitude to eating. The meal times are sacrosant and activities are scheduled around them, e.g. football games, theatre productions. On a French beach everyone clears off for lunch, leaving it blessedly free for the foreigners to enjoy. We used to go down at 12 when all the French were trailing back to their hotels, tents etc. When they picnic they do it in style with tables, chairs. Even if they stop by the roadside they get out the equipment.
Having said that there is a downside. French women are obsessed with their weight - at least the bourgeois ones are, not so much in the countryside. It is a crime to be overweight. Therefore many more middle class, middle aged French women SMOKE than in the UK. Inevitably if you sit at outside at a cafe a smart, middle aged French woman will sit herself next to you and light up. It has got to the point where we almost never sit outside to eat or drink. This is much less common in in England where I hardly know any middle class women who smoke. Or men. The French believe smoking keeps them thin.
I do applaud their no snacking policy though, but as I said, things are changing. It is often a socioeconomic thing with work life and family life being disrupted so fast food has crept in.

Achaila

Why is our culture constantly being compared to others? If I wanted to live like the French, I'd live in France.

millerll

I don't believe snacking is necessarily causing obesity (there are healthy snacks, after all), but I do think kids in the US are overfed all day long. When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, we only snacked in the summer or after we'd been outside burning a lot of calories playing. And I always asked permission before taking something from the pantry. Even then, I was only allowed 1 or 2 cookies. And sometimes, none at all, if my parents thought I'd had enough that day.

We never ate in the car, unless it was a long road trip. You waited until you got home to eat. And we certainly never ate in stores. Nowadays, every kid I see in a store has a sippy cup and a baggie of goldfish or something like that. Cars are full of crumbs and spilled juice boxes. It seems that parents are shoving something in their kids' mouths all day long. They come to expect it, and I think it carries over when they get older and never get out of the habit of grazing all day long.

This is purely anecdotal, but when I lived in Japan 20 years ago, they never ate in the subways of out on the streets. To walk and eat was considered bad manners. Westerners often broke this rule and the Japanese seemed a bit horrified by it. Times may have changed by now, though.

janatarnhem

Not snacking is becoming the fashion in the nutritional world too.....next it will be only eat when you are hungry! It is all common sense really isn't it......but being surrounded by food ...loads of it unhealthy...makes that hard to do!!

helenrosemay

We never used to eat snacks as kids. We'd have 4 meals a day, breakfast, dinner, tea, supper. We never snacked on sweets, fruit, crisps or anything. Fruit was eaten during meals as a dessert. It was only when we started getting pocket money as we got older we started buying our own snacks. That was our choice what to spend our money on. Of course we wanted the snacks because we saw all our friends snacking. Who knows if we'd have still bought snacks if people around us didn't buy them.

__Di__

I am just wondering how the French have such rigid set times for meals........ do all jobs over there start and finish at the same times of the day, no shiftwork etc?

BeachIron

There is no point but the discussion that the post elicited is clearly at odds with your own cherished beliefs? Carry on with the amazing cultural discoveries of bored Canadian housewives who just got back from their first foray into another culture and have decided to stop snacking.

That's not "discussion" that's just being superior, condescending and rude.

When resorting to patronising people like this, you've just shown that you have nothing meaningful to contribute.

Nice out of context quote. That was in response to the OP's repeated assertions that this thread was not meant to elicit discussion and debate on the diet and weight loss benefits or costs of snacking, even though I was among several who appropriately interpreted it in that manner. And yes, that is my honest opinion about the article cited. It is common clap trap written by someone with little experience with cultures other than her own. The same piece could have been written by the myriad other 1 year expats I've met over the years. A good number seem to get absolutely enthralled with their adopted (and temporary) culture and spend countless hours posting on FB and other places about their "discoveries," rather than accepting that they're not Marco Polo in China. In terms of a serious piece on cultural exploration and/or nutrition it is seriously lacking.

If we are to discuss the snacking habits of the French, then perhaps we should be discussing the significance of their snacking or not snacking. My own experiences in Japan and HK over several years seemed to indicate to me that people eat different things, in different ways, and still manage to stay thin and healthy. People have different customs. No surprise there. As I said before, I seriously doubt snacking is significant, especially in light of the fact that we already know that meal timing doesn't matter and that what truly matters is total calorie consumption. How you get to your daily calories and nutrition needs is up to you to decide for yourself, and everyone else to decide for themselves. If they want 1 meal a day, or 4, it really makes no difference except in terms of whether it keeps a specific individual on track for their calorie count that day. For me, there are days that I eat 1 meal, most days where I eat 4 (including a snack), and some days where I eat 6. There are plenty of successful body builders who believed for years that one must eat at least 6 times a day, and if you look on here, you find plenty of others who swear that intermittent fasting with 1 daily meal is essential for their success.

Marion_

This article is quite true: as a child in France, normally you're not supposed to eat snacks between meals (usually 4 a day, however kids usually have a snack to eat at school around 10 am).

It's true but doesn't mean that our diet is particularly healthy, we do have very unhealthy habits including:
- having cheese + dessert after a meal
- cooking habits with lots of cream, butter, etc. Alcohol with dinner, etc
- I think sport/working out is not a big part of our culture as in the US (but we don't use the car as much...)
- people do eat lots of fast food now, soda with dinner for kids, etc

Anyways, there is no point in trying to get habits from other countries. Just use your own habits and make it better.