‘Is snacking, even of healthy food – a bad habit?’
Snacking is such a challenges or perhaps not! This question posed on our live free web event “Ask the Experts” went straight to the heart of the issue
We were joined by Dr Emma Haycraft of the Child Feeding guide and here was her response:
Snacking is part of a healthy diet and it’s particularly important for children, whose tummies are smaller than adults’. The NHS recommends that children eat three meals and two healthy snacks per day. There are lots of healthy snack options. Fruit and veg are great as snack foods, as are breadsticks and humous, pitta bread and cream cheese, oatcakes and peanut butter. There’s more advice and snack ideas on our recent blog: https://www.childfeedingguide.co.uk/documents/3/Article_for_Child_Feeding_Guide__joint_blog_post_revised_FINAL.pdf
Top tips are to keep snacks healthy and try to stick to just two a day. Avoid regularly having chocolate, sweets or crisps as snacks. They are ok as an occasional treat but should be avoided frequently. Instead, focus on using snack time as a way to boost children’s nutritious food intake’.
We echo Emma’s view and underpinning this is that Public Health England recently warned that unless snacking is understood we are setting our children up for a life of obesity and poor health.
What we do know from the study is that currently too many children are eating at least three unhealthy high cal sugary snacks every day. Public Health England says that parents and caregivers should stop at two and ensure that they do not have more than 100 calories each.
Public Health England says that the average child’s diet contains three times more sugar than recommended.
Riverside Cares are big fans of the NHS Change4life campaign https://www.nhs.uk/change4life#Ah7JCELojR3CYesY.97
Would you like to join us for a session about creating a nutritious and healthy diet? We can arrange a small group session for you in your workplace, home or setting and can even add on a food safety training session. Drop us a line to info@riversidecares.co.uk
Here’s something about our pre-school nutrition session which will be tailored to your specific interest https://www.riversidetrainingcompany.co.uk/product/infant-to-preschool-nutrition/
btw check out our instagram for lots of fab foodie ideas www.instagram.com/riversidecares/
Thank you so much for the snack ideas. I”m bringing snacks for teens and the first thing I thought of, when I read your suggestion for fruit snacks and fruit leather was braces! My teen daughters both have limits on what they can snack on and anything gummy is off limits. Just something you may want to add, as kids will get older and many of them will have braces. Also off limits are hard foods, pita chips, pretzels and such. Hence why I googled “snacks for soccer. But, otherwise, thank youagain.