Snacks are the cause of overweight people
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I didn't read all of the posts, so sorry if this has been said. When I was in elementary school my siblings and I were outside constantly running around. We were hardly ever in the house. We came in when it was time for dinner. With all of the electronic games, now a lot of kids would rather watch tv or play xbox instead of playing outside. I think that would be a large part of the problem. Eating more, and moving less. We did have snacks btw, and we were not overweight children.0
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I gain weight with 2 meals a day and lose weight with 4 meals a day. That's one snack included. I think it's what you eat, not how often. Also, if you keep your blood sugar steady, you're less likely to binge. So I definitely approve of snacks, at least personally.0
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Pretty sure it's the content of what they're eating, not necessarily the frequency.
Then again, in the two countries I've stayed in that had the least overweight people (France and South Korea) rarely did I see anyone snacking or eating on the go. Different approach to food, I suppose.
I'm also a chronic snacker...I know meal frequency doesn't matter, but I like to graze rather than feel stuffed after a meal. At my highest weight I would skip breakfast and eat a huge lunch or dinner, and I was still large.0 -
I am 53 and when I was younger I ate loads of stuff and was a real skinny minny. I didn`t start to put weight on until I was 26 when I was pregnant with my first of 2 children. My own fault no excuses!
IMO it was because I grew up running about outside, horse riding, jogging,skipping, swimming, going to the park with friends just mainly running around because it was deemed that it was safe to do all that type of stuff.
Now, here where I live, in the UK children are encouraged to stay indoors due to the unsafe world outside of where they live.
It is very rare you see children playing.
X boxes and playstations keep children indoors. Along with the parents wanting to keep the children safe?
sign of the times?0 -
Obviously everybody has already hit on all the major components of obesity in children today, it is a compound problem with many factors. Parents are working 2 jobs and generally try to take the easy way when it comes to feeding their children. Also, there is less opportunity for kids to play because parents are busier and/or much more worried about their safety than when we were kids. I know I can't supervise my kids outside 12 hours/day.....so then kids spend more time sitting around. And when you sit around, you eat junk.
Today I was at the pool with my kids. There was a little girl there who was pretty chubby. She would swim for 5 minutes, then run to her mother, who would give her 3 or 4 potato chips to cram in her mouth. She did this for 2 hours. It makes me sad to think the struggles that kid will face because of her mom's choices.0 -
I disagree. It's not so much the snacking that causes it, but eating too much and/or the wrong things.
Many factors can cause obesity.
Overeating
Eating the wrong types of foods constantly (lacks nutrients the body needs to function at its best)
Inactivity
Medications
Health conditions / ailments
We could blame it on video games or the companies that make the foods, but in reality, it is not focusing on health that is the issue. Some people may not know much about how to eat better, and some people may eat excellent and still have to take medicines that cause weight gain. Some people may have near death experiences and lose function of parts of their body, and that can cause them to be overweight.
Health is very important, but it depends on the individual. It is up to them to make a difference.0 -
I'm in my 30's. When I was a kid, it was not only deemed safe and socially acceptable for children to play outside, it was actually encouraged. We all wore wristwatches, and I knew to be home at 6:00 if it was daylight out, or by dark in winter (grew up in England, so not as cold as Canadian winters lol). We also didn't have a gazillion scheduled activities that we were driven to. I went to Brownies once a week. The rest of the time, I was on my own to entertain myself.
Now that I'm a parent and a teacher, I don't see kids playing outside ever. There has not once been a game of street hockey on my block, kids don't play on the playground after school, if they do go to the park, they're sitting drinking pop/soda and eating chips together, and the only activity they get is in school or at scheduled activities. I couldn't send my kid out to play by himself because it is no longer considered acceptable, but also because there are no other kids out there to play with. The isolation and lack of safety in numbers is why it really is no longer safe for kids to play outside.
This is the single biggest change. I think parents either give more processed or unprocessed foods to their kids same as they've done for generations in the Western hemisphere, but in years past most kids got far more exercise just from the sheer joy of being a kid than they do now.0 -
I snacked and was skin and bones. Individuals, even children, are going to have different metabolism and also burn different calories through the day. My 3 children are completely different than each other and one of them would never make it through the day without snacking. I don't give him a box of cookies but give him healthy things. A childs stomach can only handle so much food at one time too.0
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Nah.. Pretty sure over eating is. My breakfast this morning was ~1200 cals.. 2 eggs with an oz of cheese shredded over them, 4 sausage links, two hashbrown patties fried in bacon grease, 4 pieces of bacon and a 16oz caramel frappe
& i still have lunch and dinner!0 -
I think eating too many calories and lack of activity generally makes people fat, not snacks.
Winner.0 -
no one ever got overweight from snacking on carrots0
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Actually, eating a caloric surplus without exercising is the cause of overweight people. Generic "snacking" is irrelevent.
This. I was skinny until I was about 13/14.
So some of it was hormonal...
My eating habits didn't really change at all, and I had snacks and food that varied. What it boiled down to was that I was so active until then, and then I found that reading or being in front of the computer was more fun than hiking.0 -
Hey.... Don't pick on snacking! ha-ha. I think it's a variety of things that made us all fat! It's not just snacking but what we snack on, super-size everything (fast-food, candy bars, etc, etc), not enough exercise. Most of the schools in my area don't even have recess anymore. What a brilliant idea!0
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In my childhood days there was no tv, no internet, no fast foods and mostly we could not afford to have snacks. Once in a great while an ice cream treat. Today the children and some adults do not how to eat healthy foods due to the accessability of convenience foods (loaded with fat and sodium) and the fast food restaurants which tempt us with the low prices of a meal for kids and adults. I had to play outside all the time for my entertainment, mostly by myself as we had no neighbors that had kids my age. At school, we all had to go outside at recess and play kick ball, baseball, vollyball, basketball and dodge ball, etc. No activities for kids at recess if they have recess at all now. Kids these days don't know how to play anything other than video games, violent at that in my opinion. So, the sedentary life style, not eating healthy and watching the portion sizes even if you are eating healthy, is a contributing factor to overweight. Some of it may be genetic, but not all overweight people can contribute their obesity to genetics......All of this is my own opinion......0
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OP, I think we have all agreed. The answer to your question is No. Problem solved
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I have snacked more since joining MFP than I have in my life, I must be doing it wrong.0 -
I eat all day (seriously, about every couple hours), and I've lost 61 pounds. I'm always gnawing on something. My desk at work always has a bunch of containers of nuts, celery, apple slices, cheese cubes, etc laying all over it. My coworkers probably think I'm a squirrel.
It depends on how many calories you eat, not how many times you eat.
Snap! I've also lost 61lbs and I snack. My personal trainer is all for snacking. It's what you snack on that matters. Obviously if you snack on chocolate, sausage rolls etc, then you'll gain weight, but having some fruit or some almonds or something is fine. Also, depends what you have for your meals too.
My kids snack and they're slim. They don't eat large amounts at meal times and they're incredibly active. Must take after me!0 -
I was a serious snack-eating machine as a kid. Pop-tarts, candy bars, chips...and juices, chocolate milk, etc...
...and was remarkably scrawny...(some would argue that I still am)...probably because I was incredibly active (and still am).
Personally, my opinion is that the problem is people are eating more calories than they burn...whether it's in snacks, meals, or whatever you want to call the eating sessions. They're eating more and burning less. Period. The end.0 -
It's the junk food.I bet if they had some fruit as a snack,they wouldn't be fat.
Couldn't agree more, the only thing making people fat is the ridiculous amount of calories and crap put into processed food + the silly amount of time it would take to burn those calories off through exercise.0 -
When I was a child we never had ANY snacks in the house and children were not asked or allowed to bring snacks into school.
We were told to eat breakfast, lunch & dinner. Basically 3 meals a day! But no snacking between meals. I remember at school that there would be the odd fat child at school but that was it.
Now I've got children and snacking is promoted, I have seen that the schools are full of overweight kids. I think the old way was definitely more healthy. What do you guys think!
I saw a book by a French woman recently (can't recall the title, maybe someone else will). It is about feeding kids and she says that the reason why French children are not picky about eating healthy foods is because they are not allowed to snack and that they eat what is put in front of them or they don't eat. Anyone else know about this?0 -
children these days are spending WAY less time playing outside and running around. They are spending more time on their butts facebooking, playing video games and texting. THAT is the problem. Even when I bring my daughter to the playground, I see the parents sitting on the benches texting and playing on their phones while their children entertain themselves. It's very sad
^This. It doesn't matter when, what, or how much you eat-- what separates fat kids from thin ones is their activity levels.
However, technology isn't the problem, it's just a much more convenient and alluring way for kids to be inactive. I was a bookworm who liked to come home and sit in her room and read all day, I got it from my mother. Even when I went to play outside, it was often just sitting in the sandbox for hours.
We weren't allowed to have a computer or a game console of any kind until I was 13. And yet, I was still lazy enough to be over 200 pounds by that point...0 -
When I was a child we never had ANY snacks in the house and children were not asked or allowed to bring snacks into school.
We were told to eat breakfast, lunch & dinner. Basically 3 meals a day! But no snacking between meals. I remember at school that there would be the odd fat child at school but that was it.
Now I've got children and snacking is promoted, I have seen that the schools are full of overweight kids. I think the old way was definitely more healthy. What do you guys think!
I've seen advice for the opposite. I've read that snacking on healthy snacks makes you eat less at meals, therefore promoting weight loss.
The reason no snacking would make you possibly GAIN weight is that you're more hungry between meals, which causes you to eat MORE during the meal.
I have a feeling your reasoning is flawed.0 -
The problem is largely laziness. Kids are lazy, so they don't exercise. Parents and schools are lazy so they don't bother with "proper" nutrition. Most of them likely don't understand the basics anyway, largely because they can't be bothered to learn (or don't even think about it).
I snack far more now than I ever did previously, but I pay attention to what I'm eating. When I was growing up, I ate whatever happened to be put in front of me at meals (via schools or at home). Really, right up until this year I ate whatever was put in front of me (or whatever I put in front of me).0 -
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Obviously snacks aren't the only problem. I have never been much of a snacker but have always struggled with my weight, mostly because when I don't keep track my portions creep up until they are about twice what a person my height should be eating. Like others have said, it's calories in/calories out that's the problem.
That having been said, there is definitely a cultural attitude in America right now that kids need snacks all day long and OMG they will probably just pass out if they spend the afternoon at the beach without a cooler filled with salami and juice boxes. I am often frustrated by this when I'm out with friends and their kids because I'll pack our little single lunch bag with some water bottles and a couple of apples and the kids will spend all afternoon mooching off other people's food. When it's just us, the kids get hungry in the late afternoon and we go home and make a real dinner. Dinner tastes awesome after a day spent running around in the sun.
I chaperoned a field trip recently, and all of the kids had lunches filled with 3 or 4 (or more) prepackaged snacks in addition to a sandwich and a juice box and (hopefully) a piece of fruit. I asked my daughter if she is just eating her friend's food because she's always bringing home her lunch (sandwich, fruit, granola bar with her refillable water bottle) half eaten.0 -
When I was a child we never had ANY snacks in the house and children were not asked or allowed to bring snacks into school.
We were told to eat breakfast, lunch & dinner. Basically 3 meals a day! But no snacking between meals. I remember at school that there would be the odd fat child at school but that was it.
Now I've got children and snacking is promoted, I have seen that the schools are full of overweight kids. I think the old way was definitely more healthy. What do you guys think!
I've seen advice for the opposite. I've read that snacking on healthy snacks makes you eat less at meals, therefore promoting weight loss.
The reason no snacking would make you possibly GAIN weight is that you're more hungry between meals, which causes you to eat MORE during the meal.
I have a feeling your reasoning is flawed.
It is, but only for the simple fact that every human being has different eating habits, whether they are healthy or unhealthy. To say that ANY one pattern of eating will make you fat or not is not only a sweeping generalization, but it just isn't going to be true for most of the population.0 -
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Just out of interest, my son brought my grand daughter to visit last week, and she asked for a biscuit or chocolate (she is 3 years old) I took her into the kitchen and said I have some nice yummy slices of ham..would you like to try it instead of a biscuit.
I told her that it is so yummy, my son said Mum you can`t give her a slice of meat when she wants a biscuit (I do not keep biscuits)
To cut a long story short she asked for the ham and said `daddy, grandma know best!` awww0 -
I don't think snacks are the cause of obesity. However, go to the grocery store or anywhere in public and you will see with your own eyes that obesity is a problem.
A little snacking is healthy, as long as it's something like an apple or a banana and not potato chips or ice cream. Not to say you can't ever have those things but people eat them in such grand quantities no wonder it's common that everybody you come in contact with is 50+ lbs overweight.
Portion control and fast food joints on every corner are the problem. Process junk is promoted and advertised over healthy lean protein and locally grown fruits and vegetables.0 -
It's only a matter of time before someone else buys the recipe. I'm calling that by this time next year, if not sooner, some new form of "Twinkies" will be on the shelves yet again.0
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