Skip to main content

Tuesday Tip for Picky Eaters: NO SNACKING!!

This week's Tuesday Tip for Picky Eaters: NO SNACKING!!
All this week, I am featuring “French Kids Eat Everything” by Karen Le Billon. On Friday, one lucky reader will win a copy of this inspiring book. As I mentioned yesterday, the book explores the 10 French Food Rules for raising happy, healthy eaters. I think the most critical piece of advice for picky eaters is: 

French Food Rule #7 - NO SNACKING!! 

American children are notorious for grazing on snack foods at all hours of the day. Recent studies have found that our kids average three snacks per day accounting for almost one-third of their daily calories. Parents who attempt to discourage constant snacking are seen as depriving their children. We’ve been led to believe that kids must have frequent snacks to help maintain their blood sugar levels and prevent temper tantrums. But is this really necessary or healthy?
One of Henry's favorite snacks is nori (dried seaweed).
By contrast, French children do not snack randomly. They are allowed one scheduled afternoon snack each day. It includes real food, like fruit or yogurt, and is eaten sitting down at the table, not on-the-go. Moderate servings of sweet snacks like cookies or dark chocolate are offered about once per week.

Our family has adopted the French snacking model with Henry. He only eats one snack per day. With the exception of grocery store sampling, he sits at the table to eat. Henry's afternoon snack is typically a few hours after lunch and at least two hours before dinner. 

Henry’s typical eating routine 
7:30 a.m.              Breakfast
11:30 a.m.            Lunch 
3:00 p.m.              Afternoon Snack 
6:00 p.m.              Dinner 
7:00 p.m.              Bedtime serving of milk

Henry snacks on pear, blue cheese and water.
Henry’s afternoon snack generally includes three components:
  • Fruit or vegetable
  • Cheese, yogurt, dried nori or rice cake
  • Milk or water to drink
About once per week, Henry’s snack includes a sweet treat. After he turned one, we decided that Henry should learn to enjoy sweets in moderation, but not as an everyday occurrence. His sweet snack might be a cup of banana pudding or sharing a cookie from the local coffee shop. He even tried a few tastes of ice cream on a recent visit to Grandma’s house.
Henry enjoys a spoonful of banana pudding.
On occasion, we will bend the rules about one snack per day if we are at a morning playdate where the other children are eating too. I do not want Henry to feel left out of the social experience of eating with other children, but because we do not offer a morning snack at home he does not expect or ask for one.
Henry munches on fresh bell pepper, freeze-dried mango and a glass of milk.
By limiting snacking, children learn to eat better at mealtimes. The flip side of this French Food Rule is being sure to offer hearty and balanced meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner so kids don’t run out of energy during the day.

What is your family's snack routine? Do you limit snacking or do you allow free-range grazing for your kids?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook

UPDATE (10/2/12): Unfortunately, I did not hear back from our original winner. Congratulations to our alternate winner for "The Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook" -- Robin Pfefer. UPDATE (9/29/12): I am happy to announce that Kashia Clopper is the winner of "The Baby-Led Weaning Cookbook". When I was first thinking about using the Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) model for Henry, I was unsure about whether it would really work. I was excited about BLW’s claims of less stressful meals that the whole family could share together. Plus, I was all for encouraging Henry to gain new skills by learning about the shapes, textures, colors, smells and flavors of food. This sounded ideal in theory, but would it work in practice? After some fun but ineffective attempts at letting Henry feed himself, I went in search of resources to learn more about BLW. I needed to learn how to prepare meals for our family in which Henry could participate. That’s when I found “ The Baby-Led
16 comments
Read more

Do Your Kids Eat Everything?

UPDATE (3/15/2013): Congratulations to Kia as the random drawing winner in this giveaway! Thank you to all those who entered this contest.  Before we began our food adventure with Henry, Daddy and I had many conversations about how to encourage Henry to become “a good eater.” After watching other parents constantly struggle with their toddlers, we wanted to know if there was anything we could do from the start to prevent picky eating. That’s when we read “ French Kids Eat Everything ” by Karen Le Billon . The book is an easy and enjoyable read about the year that Karen’s family spent in France and how it changed the way her family eats. The heart of the book explores the 10 French Food Rules for raising happy, healthy eaters. “French Kids Eat Everything” sparked numerous discussions at our dinner table about how our family eats. We have become more conscious of our assumptions about food and how that will influence Henry’s understanding of mealtimes. In addition, the
17 comments
Read more

Please Don't Feed My Toddler Cheetos

Our family has started a new chapter -- last week I rejoined the paid workforce! I am very excited about my new part-time job at a local history museum, coordinating field trips and special events. As part of this transition, Henry is now going to daycare three days per week.  Henry meets new friends and plays with new toys on his first day at daycare. Searching for quality childcare was a somewhat stressful experience. We visited 8 childcare facilities who had immediate space available for Henry to begin part-time care. I wanted to be confident that Henry would be cared for by experienced, nurturing staff in an environment that would challenge him to learn new skills and form friendships with other children. Of course, the added cost of childcare also had to fit within our family budget. While interviewing daycares, one aspect that I cared about was food. All eight of the facilities participate in the USDA food program , receiving reimbursement at a set rate for the meals they
5 comments
Read more