Chips and sweets now make up a quarter of kid's diets....

Children are hungrier for snacks, study finds
Chips and sweets make up 27% of their average daily calories, research says, suggesting that such treats have become more integral to kids' routines.


By Melissa Healy
March 2, 2010

When American kids reflect upon their childhoods decades from now, snacks may figure more prominently in their memories -- and around their waists -- than meals shared around a table.

From 1977 to 2006, American children have added 168 snack calories per day to their diets, a study finds. They're munching cookies after school, granola bars on the way to piano lessons, chips after an hour of soccer practice and peanut butter and crackers while waiting for dinner. For some, those extra 1,176 calories a week could amount to as much as 13 1/2 pounds of body fat a year.

Those non-meal noshes now account for more than a quarter of their average daily caloric intake, said Barry M. Popkin of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs.

The research establishes just how much the omnipresence of snacks -- and the $68-billion-a-year industry that sells them -- has contributed significantly to an epidemic of excess weight among U.S. children.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-snacks2-2010mar02,0,7910490.story

something my own mother never did. If she was feeling charitable that day, I got a piece of fruit to tide me over to supper, or a cube of cheese, or something else that actually provided nourishment.

I can't say I didn't regret the cookies (hated milk) at the time, but it was much better to have something quick and easy that actually did something for me.

too many sweets and chips are unheathy food.

I raised 5,on a budget,and chips and sweets were special occasion treats.

My kids are now raising their kids the same way.

The solution:"Just say no".

the pangs for the stuff. It's taken me decades to return to the diet I had as a child and teenager with minimum snacking.