Weighing in on trend of offering treats to kids at every function

IF, AS THE old saying goes, you are what you eat, then American kids must be snacks.
Kids get snacks in preschool, grade school and religious school. They get snacks at Scout meetings. They get snacks at sporting events - at halftime, as well as after the game. Which means, if you're keeping score, they get two snacks in the space of an hour.

"Everywhere you go, every activity they're involved in, there has to be food somehow," said Jennifer Young, a Manheim Township mother of four.

First lady Michelle Obama recently launched a comprehensive initiative called "Let's Move" to combat childhood obesity in the United States.

Today, nearly one in three American children is overweight or obese, risking diabetes, high blood pressure and other obesity-related health problems. Healthy snacks can be part of the solution, health experts say. The problem is that too many kids' snacks are unhealthy treats, and kids have come to expect them as rewards for doing ordinary things.

A New York Times article noted recently that "when it comes to American boys and girls, snacks seem both mandatory and constant. Apparently, we have collectively decided as a culture that it is impossible for children to take part in any activity without simultaneously shoving something into their pie holes."

According to a government study, the percentage of the American population eating three or more snacks a day rose from 11 percent in 1977 to 42 percent in 2002.

The New York Times article suggested that the rise in snacking has been fed by parental guilt, the demise of the family dinner and the over-scheduling of children.

Susan Reeves, a clinical dietitian with the Center for Nutrition and Activity Promotion at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital, said kids have come to expect snacks as rewards for completing sports games and practices.

"I've been at events where the kids only came to practice because of the snack. It was the carrot, if you will," said Reeves, a mother of two sons. Actually, carrots, she said, would have been fine. More often, the snacks were something like Cheez-Its and Capri Suns.

Jennifer Hill, a West Lampeter Township mother of four, was at Lanco Fieldhouse one recent evening, watching her 11-year-old daughter go through the paces at a soccer clinic.

Hill said that when her daughter played on a recreational soccer team, the parents were expected to sign up to bring the team snacks. She and her husband objected to the organized - and in their view, unnecessary - snacking.

"They're there to exercise - not to eat," she said, adding, "It's almost like a reward for doing an hour of exercise, when the reward should be doing something good for your body."
Jennifer Young said her younger daughter's soccer team finally put a stop to team snacks last spring. She welcomed this development.

"If you're at an activity that's only an hour or an hour and a half, do you really need to stop for a snack?" she asked.

Young has a son with a food allergy, so the prevalence of organized snacking has been a particular headache for her. Her son often felt left out at snack time, she said.

Parents didn't always have to worry about such things. They didn't used to have snack schedules for each of their kids' activities tacked on their fridges. (Now there's even a Web site, snacklist.com, which helps parents keep track of their snack duties.)

Young's mother, Judy Nelson, said that when she was a Girl Scout leader, her scouts "came in, did their thing, and then went home." There was no snacking.

Jessica Steinman, director of Lancaster Brethren Preschool and a mother of three, said that when she played sports as a child, "there wasn't a mom with a cooler full of snacks, waiting to feed us."

Steinman said that for a while, her young son would get fruit at the halftime of his soccer game, and then some sugary treat after the game. It would be 10 a.m. and her little boy would be "eating cookies dipped in frosting," and washing them down with 20 ounces of Gatorade, she said.

"And I have to take him home. And he's already done his running around," she said, laughing ruefully.

This year, her son joined a basketball team, and there are no team snacks. Steinman is heartened by this. "The kids shouldn't be there for the Twinkies and juice bags. ... They're in sports to get some exercise and be part of a team," she said.

In her role as preschool director, Steinman said she urges the parents of preschoolers to send in healthy snacks. Parents are given a list of suggested snacks at a parent orientation meeting at the beginning of the year.

She said she knows that it's often cheaper, and more convenient, for parents to "grab a bag of something at Costco," rather than buy and cut up fresh fruits and vegetables. And the prepackaged snacks come in "cute little packages," which can be alluring to the busy parent, she said.

But she urges parents to stick to snacks that are low in sugar and provide some nutrition. If they want to send in cupcakes for a child's birthday, she asks that parents also send in a nutritional snack to accompany the sugary treat.

"We do understand that for holidays and birthdays, kids generally want a treat. ... We understand that those are special days. Our hope, in promoting healthy snacking, is that is not the everyday choice," Steinman said.

Even Cookie Monster, the famed sugar addict on "Sesame Street," now sings that cookies are a "sometime food." (However, Cookie Monster has not been replaced by a Veggie Monster, as one urban myth claims.)

Jacqui Zimmerman, a registered dietitian at Lancaster General Health, said snacking isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"I think that a healthy snack does have its place, especially for very young children," Zimmerman said. And some schoolchildren eat lunch at 10:45 a.m., so they need an after-school snack, she said.

Zimmerman said that snacks should be used to fill "nutritional deficits," and should be a serving from one of the approved food groups. "It shouldn't be fluff," she said.
So if, for instance, a child doesn't get enough calcium at mealtime, his snack should be a serving of dairy. "A good snack combines two food groups," Zimmerman said, citing whole-grain crackers and low-fat cheese as an example.

Zimmerman said "it can frustrate me at times ... when the Sunday school snack is doughnuts or cookies, and it's 9:30 in the morning." But she said she doesn't get "too bent out of shape" about her 3-year-old son having a sweet treat now and then.

"As long as your overall diet is OK, it's OK to have the occasional treat," she said.
The downfall for some people is that they routinely "choose snacks that aren't filling in any way, or don't have any substance or nutrition," she said.

A young child who runs around a soccer field for a half-hour doesn't need to drink 20 ounces of Gatorade. Water, orange slices, 100 percent fruit juice or a glass of milk would be much better choices, Zimmerman said.

A sports field should be a place where kids learn about the benefits of physical activity and nutritious eating, she said. "We should be teaching our kids about making healthy choices," Zimmerman said. "Snack time can be a teachable moment."

People's eating habits are formed early in life. "If we can catch them when they're young, these habits will carry on into adulthood," Zimmerman said.

Parents need to be modeling healthy eating behaviors, she said, noting that "the providing of the snack, that's part of that modeling."

Susan Reeves, at Penn State Hershey, agreed that snacks aren't evil. "Snacking helps to keep your blood sugar constant, it keeps you from getting too hungry," she said. She said that snacks for kids should be low in simple sugars and trans fats. And they should be child-appropriate portions.

A snack should not be given within an hour to an hour and a half of a meal, "because it will blunt their appetite, and they won't eat the healthy things you serve at a meal," Reeves said.
She said it's important for kids to have "a chance to listen to their bodies," so they learn to eat only when they're hungry.

Reeves said that when her older son was on the high school soccer team, she was given a snack schedule, and found the prospect of handing out snacks to high school kids "kind of embarrassing."

"I said to the parents, what are you doing? These kids are older. They're making a lot of the food choices themselves. ... And still, I was shot down," she said, noting, "It just goes to show you how ingrained the snacking thing is."

Reeves said she was "always the nerdy mom" who insisted on bringing healthy snacks to her sons' sporting activities.

This can be hard, she said, because "kids get really excited when there's a certain kind of snack available, and we do want to please them."

Soccer moms Cherisse Feddock and Stephanie Steren agreed that the snacking at organized activities can get out of hand.

Feddock, a Manheim Township mother of three, said she tries to ensure that her kids eat healthy snacks.

Sometimes, parents on snack duty bring foods they wouldn't dream of keeping in their own cupboards. It can feel as if "you're bucking the trend if you bring something healthy," she said.

And yet, said Steren, another Manheim Township mom of three, "if you bring apple slices, the kids devour them."

It's tempting to want to be "the cool mom," to bring the processed snacks marketed to kids, Steren said. But "you have to be a tough mom," she said, noting that you have to tell kids, "you just can't have what you want."

Suzanne Cassidy is a Sunday News staff writer. Contact her at scassidy@lnpnews.com.