Snacks Can Be Good for Kids

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Snacking, Not Snack Foods

 Snacking has a bad connotation.  This is partly because the word "snack" can either mean food between meals OR junk food.  "Snack food" means food like cookies, candy, chips, and other low nutrition, processed food.

Children Need Frequent Meals

Snack food is bad, but snacking is good.  Children, especially small children should get one or two snacks between meals. Snacking helps prevent children from getting too hungry between meals.  If a child gets too hungry, they tend to crave high calorie foods.  If they have a more moderate influx of food, they are more accepting of healthy foods with lower calorie density.  You want to prevent your child from getting stuffed or extremely hungry.

Vegetables for Snacks

Snacks are a great time to give your child healthy foods like vegetables.  At mealtimes, your child will have a variety of foods to eat -- it's easy for her to skip the vegetables.  Snacks usually contain one or two foods, so she can't avoid the vegetables by satisfying her hunger with something else.  Vegetables also satisfy hunger without "spoiling" your child's appetite.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.