Pictured left: Sophia's "Food Flower" with "olive clouds and a potato chip sun" (Age 6)

Why is my kid gaining weight?

It’s a loaded question for sure but what does the science tell us? We know that a child’s environment, genetics, physical activity and eating certainly influence his/her weight, but what about snacks?

Today, snacks contribute close to a third of a child’s daily calories¹. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “I never ate as many snacks as my kid eats when I was his/her age,” you’re probably right. Relative to kids who ate snacks 40 years ago, kids today eat salty and sweet snacks more often than their parents did. But to say that eating more salty and sweet snacks = weight gain in kids is oversimplifying the situation. The literature is mixed in regards to a.) the frequency that a child snacks and his/her weight status b.) the composition of snacks consumed and his/her weight status². There is an abundance of research on the behavioral aspects of snack selection and correlations between those selections and weight status in kids and that is why we recommend the following to parents wanting to foster healthy snacking habits with their kids.

Support Your Child’s Healthy Snacking

1. Model your own selection of whole food snacks in front of your children (i.e. nuts, fruits, vegetables, and whole grain). Use plain language to verbalize what you’re doing, “I’m really hungry, so I am going to make a filling snack to eat. I’m choosing baby carrots and hummus because the carrots are a brightly colored veggie and the hummus is made of beans. Plus it’s fun to dip the carrots in!” Kids benefit from you talking about what goes on in your head.
2. Eat at the table. Minimize distractions (i.e. turn off cellphones, video games, televisions & tablets). Some research results suggest that eating while distracted increases how much an adult eats later in the day. More research is needed in children and this behavior.
3. Make the most of the snacking opportunity by choosing foods rich in nutrients that Americans aren’t eating enough of to meet recommendations that will stave off health problems—foods that are rich in vitamin D, calcium, potassium and fiber³.

Build a Better Snack

Here are a few of our kid-friendly favorites (nutrient content listed in estimates):

½ c low-fat vanilla yogurt (150mg calcium) + ½ banana slices (222mg potassium) + dusting of cinnamon (for fun!)

Veggie robots: 3 toothpicks, four 1/2” x 1/2” hard cheddar cheese blocks (180mg calcium), 1 cherry tomato, 2 broccoli florets, 4 slices of cucumber, 2 cauliflower florets (1c veggies ~4 grams) with simple tzatziki yogurt sauce for dipping (scroll to bottom for recipe)

1 hard-boiled egg (41IU vitamin D) + 1/2 c edamame pods

1 package tuna in water (~150IU vitamin D) with 1/2 T Italian dressing mixed in it served on 1 slice of 100% whole wheat sandwich bread (2 grams fiber)

 Hungry for more? We routinely share our favorite snack and meal time recipes on our Instagram and Twitter pages. Need help selecting snacks for your hungry student? Contact us at info@northtexasnutrition.com

 References:

1. Piernas C, Popkin BM. Trends in snacking among U.S. children. Health Aff (Millwood) 2010;29:398–404.
2. Hess, J. M., Jonnalagadda, S. S., & Slavin, J. L. (2016). What is a snack, why do we snack, and how can we choose better snacks? A review of the definitions of snacking, motivations to snack, contributions to dietary intake, and recommendations for improvement. Advances in Nutrition, 7(3), 466-475. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.115.009571
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2015 – 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 8^th Edition. December 2015. Available at https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/.

Simple Tzatziki Sauce:

1c low-fat Greek yogurt

1 medium lemon 

1/2 english cucumber, peeled, diced and seeded

3 tablespoons of fresh dill, minced 

1 whole garlic clove, minced

Instructions: Toss all ingredients into a bowl (minus the lemon). Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice in the ingredients, stirring thoroughly. Grate the peel into the sauce (if desired). Refrigerate and use leftovers within two days.