Now, there is no scientific consensus on how often you should eat per day. Some experts advise three meals per day. Some advise more. Scientists still debate whether it is better to graze (several small meals throughout the day) or eat “three square meals per day.” And there is no consensus about the timing of meals and the distribution of calories across those meals (Is it better to have a big lunch? A big dinner?). Basically, science doesn’t provide definitive answers on snacking. The French compromise is to schedule three meals and one big snack per day. This gives kids the benefits of snacking while minimizing the potentially negative effects. These benefits are psychological as well as physical: if parents allow kids to eat whenever they want, French parents believe, they fail to learn self-control, and risk filling up on unhealthy foods.
The French are also cautious about grazing. Unscheduled, any-time-you-like grazing only works for people who have a keen sense of their own feelings of hunger and fullness. Helping your children to develop this sense probably means minimizing their snacks—both in volume and in the amounts consumed. The “no unscheduled snacking” rule also helps teach your kids to avoid eating for emotional reasons (like boredom). Plus, your children will eat better at mealtimes because they will have better appetites. And remember, scheduling snacks is not about deprivation, but rather about moderation.
Kids tend to self-regulate the total calories they eat over the course of a day. So if they don’t eat a lot at breakfast, they’ll have a bigger midmorning snack. Or if they eat lots at after-school snack, they won’t have a big dinner. The goal of scheduling (or reducing) snacks is to have most food consumption happen at mealtimes—when the foods are likely to be healthier.
Rule #7 Tips on Snacking
• Teach your children the difference between feeling satisfied and feeling full. Encourage them to stop eating when comfortably full (but not stuffed). Most young children have a natural “fullness feeling” to which they are sensitive, so don’t push them to override and suppress this.
• To encourage children to tune into their body, ask them: “Tell me when you are feeling half full? Nearly full?” Encourage them to stop at that point, pause for a minute or two, and then ask whether they’d like more.
• Think of snacks like mini-meals: they should be mostly made of healthy, unprocessed foods, just like at (say) dinnertime. Snack only at the table.
• Create a snacking rule that suits your family: for example, children never have to ask to reach for a piece of fruit, but they do have to ask permission for anything else.
• If your child doesn’t eat much at one meal, advance the timing of the next meal rather than giving an extra snack.
• Water, for the French, is like a food group. Drink water at snacktime. Teach your children to distinguish between feelings of thirst and feelings of hunger.
• Keep a family food diary for a week, and track what your children are eating, and how much. Take a look at the results. Should you rebalance snacks and meals? Should you eat more of some foods, and a little less of others?
French Food Rule #8:
Take your time, for both cooking and eating.
Slow food is happy food.
French parents train their children to be “mindful eaters.” This is basic psychology for the French, who teach kids to learn how to link the “feed me” messages from our stomachs with the decision-making “controls” in our heads, so that kids (like adults) only eat until they are satisfied (not necessarily full).
French kids are also taught all of the commonsense things we know (but often forget): eat slowly; pay attention to what you are eating (which means don’t do anything else, like watch TV, drive, or read); serve smaller portions. Even if they don’t learn these things at home, they learn them at school, where these rules are applied every day in the cantine. These, I realized, were the things I really needed to teach my children.
American kids, in contrast, get used to super-sized portions at an early age. They live in a culture of overeating, of food as fuel, of eating-on-the-go, which creates a vicious cycle in which impulsive eating of calorie-rich but unsatisfying foods propels people into further eating in order to satisfy their cravings. And ever-increasing serving sizes in restaurants and bigger containers at the supermarket also encourage us to overeat. The result, as nutritionists warn, is that children’s “physiological basis for eating is becoming deregulated” in many countries.
An easy way to correct this is to eat more slowly. That way, your brain has time to catch up with your stomach. As soon as my children sit down at the table, I sit down with them and start a conversation or a story. This captures their attention (so they are more likely to want to stay sitting at the table) and usually puts them in a better mood (so they are more open to eating). Plus, it relaxes me too—which is really important after a long day at work. After having children, dinnertime used to be the highest-stress part of my day; now, my new goal is to make it a moment of relaxation. (I admit we don’t always achieve this goal, but it’s one worth having!)
Rule #8 Tips on Creating a Happy, Relaxed, Eating Atmosphere
• Children are naturally slow eaters. Slow down your eating to their pace, just as you slow down your walking pace.
• Encourage (and model) food choices based on maintaining good health and pleasure, rather than focusing on fears of being overweight. Being positive about food will have better results in the long run.
• Praise those who eat well rather than punishing those who don’t.
• Don’t create a negative emotional setting (pressure, demands to hurry, criticism, tension).
• Make the table festive. Use an “every day” tablecloth, and get the kids to help
