The Snack Race: A Mother’s Plea for Disarmament

The other day as I prepared my usual arsenal of snacks for the park – where I planned to be for an hour or two – I threw up my hands.  The time for unilateral nonproliferation of noshing had come.  What began with a piece of fruit between meals had escalated to stockpiling a reserve supply every time I left the house with my children: sandwiches, granola bars, bags of dried fruits and nuts.  Forget using the water fountain, the other parents brought Spiderman water bottles, if not coconut water or thermoses of herbal tea. 

Here’s how the snack cold war unfolds:  We’re meeting a neighboring state at the park.  No sooner have I unclipped the stroller buckle than my oldest son announces he’s hungry.  He’s not; he just had lunch.  But ok, I pull out a banana for which he appears grateful.  The neighboring state brings out a bag of Pirate’s Booty and gracefully offers some to my son.  After he’s polished off half the bag, I feel I had better deploy the peanut butter and jelly from my stash.  The neighboring state has a second lunch of mass destruction: pizza.  At which point some rogue state shows up with a cupcake – the atom bomb of snacks – and we have ourselves a stand-off.

I’ve tried to send in a sibling envoy – hey, go see if your brother wants to go on the swings.  This has proven ineffective. 

I’ve had talks with my strategic partners.  We all agree that three meals a day are preferable, that there is no need for all of this snacking.  We even get close to reaching an agreement.  Talks fail.

My strategic partners worry about low blood sugar, which is understandable.  No one likes a cranky child.  But when my kids snack all day, they don’t eat meals and end up snacking more.  My boys have the metabolism of hummingbirds and are small for their age, so I work hard to feed them nutritious, sustaining meals. 

Snack foods rarely fit that description.  I have a friend who valiantly tries to avoid sugary, simple carbohydrate snacks, but pulls out a Tupperware container of meatballs at the playground.  If meatballs are a snack, what is dinner?

Some argue that eating smaller amounts more frequently is healthier.  This may or may not be true, but meatballs in a stroller strike me as a pretty lonely meal – not too far from a commuter’s cheeseburger behind the wheel.  Shared meals are important, if not for potential nutrition then for community, conversation, and family unity.

Family unity and harmony doesn’t mean obsessing over our children’s constant happiness.  Much has been written about our low tolerance for negative but inevitable (and beneficial) emotions.  We give kids presents on other people’s birthdays to shield them from disappointment.  We tell them to slow down, not to climb so high to avoid getting hurt.  I wonder if hunger is one more uncomfortable feeling we try to spare our children. 

Obviously we don’t want them to truly go hungry – and certainly most of us are blessed to have the choice – but working up an appetite is a good thing.  It’s a habit I’m still practicing, usually at about 4 PM when reaching for some form of chocolate.  When I follow my own advice, I have room for a healthier dinner.

So I’m going to go back to the piece of fruit between meals and see how it works.  If you happen to see me in the playground, please keep in mind that I am unarmed and vulnerable.

And if you’d like to join me in multilateral snack nonproliferation, the bumper stickers are already out there.  Imagine: Whirrled Peas.