The problem with snacking

Like most mothers I have an arsenal of snacks in my pantry. Everything from treats like pixie sticks to healthy snacks like dried fruit and water crackers; little thought is given into how much my kiddies actually consume, and until recently I didn't realize just how much our snacks impact our health. A few days ago I read an article about the health risks of snacking. It stated "the current average of three snacks a day is two too many in a nation where 17 percent of kids are obese." [read here] I was shocked, although my kids are skinny little people, i'm not and more times than non i'm right there snacking away with them. This got me thinking, How many calories do we really consume daily just on snacks? And are we really teaching our children the right kind of eating habits by add even one snack to their diet?

In my family we have 2 to 3 snacks per day.
generally my children have a snack 2 hours after breakfast, an hour before lunch, and about 3 hours before dinner, so it breaks down to something like breakfast is at 7:30, lunch is always at 1:00pm (that's just we I like it), dinner is at 7pm. So you can kind of get an idea about how my kids snack.

Yesterday I really paid attention to what I was giving my children, and realized something startling: My kids consumed 1089.23 Calories a day (each) in snacking alone. And they didn't even have juice, soda, or candy with those snacks. In fact most people would agree that my snacks were generally healthy. So lets take a look at what my kiddies had...

Snack #1 : 1 cup of dry cereal Cinnamon Chex and 1 Tangerine

Snack #2: Gold Fish Crackers and 1 banana

Snack #3 4 Saltine Crackers, 5 cubes of Chedder Cheese, and 1 Tangerine.

They also had 1 OreoCookie each as a treat at one point in the day.

From the simple looks of it, most people would look at my children and say, why are you even concerned they are skinny little emaciated looking super active boys, but the truth is i'm always snacking along with them, and I'm consuming just as much as they are only my metabolism doesn't have ADHD like theirs does. Also, my kids might be super active little boys now but I worry that what I might have learned about giving kids snacks and even so-called healthy snacks is actually condemning them to a unhealthy lifestyle later on.

Leo and our goddaughter Kayla enjoying a snack of canned peaches and crackers