Dear Parents,
This was my 4 1/2 year old daughter’s second year playing soccer through the local YMCA league. As much as I have loved watching some of her first athletic endevours, there was a part of the experience that was disturbing. The whole snack thing.
Every week a child’s parents were assigned to bring snacks for the children to enjoy after their games. Whether the kids actually need snack after a 45 minute game that either started right after breakfast or ended right before lunch is another post for another day, but what really got me was the complete lack of quality of snacks contributed for these growing kids.
In the two years of Meghan’s soccer seasons, only two of the snacks provided were fresh, non-processed foods. And yes, both of those snacks were provided by me. The snacks my daughter was given by other parents ranged from a bag of Doritos to a pack of six Oreo cookies. And always with juice. Snack became Meghan’s favorite part of soccer.
Week after week the same thing kept going through my mind:
What ever happened to orange slices?
I mean, really. If you are a parent who grew up playing soccer or little league, you are likely old enough to have been given the same snack week after week post game. Fresh fruit. Forgive me for sounding old or passe, but I miss the good ol’ days.
What kind of message are we sending our kids if we are giving them junk food after their athletic events? How is that setting them up for a lifetime of healthy choices?
Something is happening with children today. And it’s not good. One out of every three kids or teens in America today is overweight or obese. This rate is almost tripled from 1963 (source).
What is going on? I’m sure this trend can be attributed to a number of factors, but I can only speak to what I’ve seen and experienced myself. The older my daughter gets, the more I am around different children and their parents and can see their eating habits first hand.
Her post soccer game snacks are just one example, but the list could go on. It seems food is always associated with activities, whether it’s at a normal time to eat or not. Unfortunately, the food is never high-quality, nourishing food. It’s always processed junk.
So I’m here to say one thing: stop it. If I do happen to bring a homemade snack to an event, stop making me feel like an outcast or like I’ve shortchanged the kids. Stop feeding your kids, but especially my kids, empty calories, full of sugar, chemicals, and artificial food dyes for snacks. Just stop.
I can’t think of one good reason why you’d bring Oreos instead of orange slices for a post game snack. You don’t have to be a chef to cut up some orange slices and it only takes a few minutes. There’s no way that a few oranges are more expensive than the individually-packaged Oreos (in a quick search I discovered that a pack of 12 is $12.99 at Staples).
What’s that you say? Your kid won’t eat the orange slices? Then your kid must not need a snack after the soccer game. Oreos or other junk foods don’t have to be an option.
If you are already on my side, don’t be afraid to speak up. It’s okay to go against the grain. Trust me, I know it’s hard. But our kids are worth it.
Forgive me if I come off as holier-than-thou in this letter. I’m certainly less than perfect when feeding my kids and yes, I have succumbed to the convenience that processed foods offer here and there. But as parents, we need to work together here. It’s that much harder for me when my daughter is bombarded with unhealthy snacks on a weekly basis.
We are the parents here. We are in charge of our children and we get to decide what we feed them. It’s a huge responsibility. Don’t take it lightly. Please, can we just start with snacks? When snacks are necessary, let’s make them fresh food. Leave the processed stuff on the grocery store shelves and give our children what they deserve. Food that nourishes them and helps them develop to the best of their genetic potential, not food that simply fills their belly with empty calories.
Are you with me?
Sincerely,
Maryea
I had recalled this post this week after I sent an email to my daughter’s preschool director. Like most preschools, they offer a small snack as it provides a great teaching opportunity in manners, sharing, division of labor, cleanliness, etc., but I’ve been astounded by the amount of processed foods my daughter is now consuming on a daily basis. It compounds itself: daily snack, classmate’s special day treat, fun learn by doing activity that incorporates “food,” etc and before you know it, she will have had more processed, artificially sweetened and colored food than I’d care to give to her. Today, I had a nice conversation with the director who promised to incorporate more healthy options but is like to offer suggestions that fit into the “allergy-friendly, budget-friendly, non-perishable” category. Have you blogged about this or have any suggestions? Raisins, other dried fruits, sunbutter, dehydrated veggies…are some of the ideas that came to mind. Thank you!
When this happened to me when Meghan was in preschool, I went to the director and had a chat. First, she agreed to cut the juice (is that an issue for you?) and then agreed to allow parents to bring in the snack on a rotating basis. So instead of processed foods everyday, snack became fresh foods, mostly fruits and vegetables. It continues to this day with Luke in the same preschool. Is that an option? If not, you listed some good options but it’s pretty limited with those restrictions. I guess you could add applesauce to the list? I’ll think and if I come up with better ideas maybe I’ll do a post on it!
Seriously! This is one of my top 5 fears of starting my son in kindergarten this year- exposure to junk food. We have junk food too sometimes but what is with schools and candy? I know because I have a degree in El Ed. Plus I loved earning jolly ranchers in 4th grade.
Once I got a rotten Capri Sun. And we were in the car. Ah! That opened my eyes a lot. Why is some factory shipping who-knows-what to me to drink in the car when I could just have water? I should probably be grateful . . . ;P
I am a 2nd grade teacher assistant, and the teacher assigns a day for each student to bring snack. She says “healthy” snack on the letter home, but doesn’t really enforce it. We usually get chips, cheese crackers, cookies, but never anything healthy. I cringe, but I am not the teacher. Sometimes I will bring homemade goodies or fruit, but 180 days of that could get a little expensive, feeding 18-20 kids per day. So it’s occasionally. I wish the parents could be educated on what constitutes healthy vs. unhealthy.
Yes, you really need to be specific when it comes to labeling foods “healthy”. Everyone has a different definition of what that means!
AMEN! Say it loud. I fully agree and get so frustrated too. My D is in daycare and they provide all the snacks and breakfast and lunch and while it isn’t all bad food sometimes they are pretty good, salad, homemade beef stew, but they still have the sugary snacks, and processed lunches. Since day one we have provided all her snacks and lunches and feed her breakfast at home. They wish more kids would eat like her and would like to give kids that food but if it’s not practiced at home what do you expect. I constantly get given a hard time by friends and family about how we eat and feed her. But it wont change what we do. I fully agree! Thanks for sharing! Keep it up!
It is so odd to me that people will give others a hard time about feeding their children WELL. It’s so backwards!
Huh- interesting. My son has played multiple sports over the last 3 years (soccer, baseball, basketball) and I think he’s had snack during/after a game a total of three times. Once it was watermelon, once it was oranges, and once it was granola bars! I wouldn’t allow him to have the vast majority of snacks provided in “public” setting anyway, b’c he has a serious food allergy. I guess this is one situation where his allergy would come in handy. [The other being Halloween, when Mommy gets to have all the peanut butter cups– you know, I HAVE to eat them right away; it’s for his safety! 😉 ]
At school, everyone sends in individual snacks as well, even for special occasions. (I live in MA and we have a state school food law that prohibits most shared foods in schools.) I do get complaints about why I won’t send in cookies/candy/junk like so-and-so’s mom, but that’s not something that particularly bothers me.
I guess this must really vary from state to state depending on how health-conscious the general population is there. I think here in OH it is especially bad!
When my boy was on our city’s league the past few years we didn’t have snack duty, just ‘orange duty’. We weren’t supposed to bring anything else, just cut up oranges and the kids took their own water bottles. Easy and healthy!
I like your city!
Bless you! Really!
This is a serious monster I face. I HATE it. We(I, really) personally have a rule that I bake goodies only on Sunday and try not to keep candy and other processed foods in the house. So it’s soooooooo frustrating to me when my kids get sugar/candy/processed foods EVERY DAY from somewhere else! They’re not soliciting for it- it’s just what others have and offer. Candy at school for good behavior, candy at church for their bdays, candy from the neighboring “grandparents” ……it goes on and on and on. I’m doing my best- my kids know what is healthy for them and hopefully they will use and apply it when they are older.
I can already see that it just gets worse and worse as Meghan gets older. I’m so not looking forward to having to deal with candy in school–ugh!!
I would like to comment that this pattern is probably not going to stop until parents themselves care more about what they put into their OWN mouths, because I highly doubt that they are eating healthily while serving sugary and processed junk to their kids, right? I’m not sure if bringing the unhealthy snacks to soccer practice is because of ignorance or laziness, but I suspect it may be a little, or a lot, of both.
Either way, until people are educated about what junk food really is and that having it even “here and there” will negatively affect their health, I don’t see a change in this unfortunate path they’re on. The health of the American people as a whole is scary…
Totally agree. Maybe you could share this blog post with some less-educated parents out there? 😉 Gotta start somewhere, right?!
Why so hateful? It seems apparent that there are some good behaviors that aren’t being modeled in your homes. How about we first model manners and then move to personal responsibility? My kids know that an offered snack of potato chips is a no…and it is good practice to turn it down politely and with a smile of appreciation for the busy parents who make an effort. You might teach your children the same.
Olena,
I don’t think Laura or my comments come from a place of hate. Frustration? Yes. Hate? No. I wrote this when my daughter was 4 1/2. She started soccer when she was 3 and that is when she was first handed snacks like packs of cookies and chips. Teaching a 3 and 4 year old to understand that some snacks offered to her at soccer games are not allowed is not something I think I should have to do. It’s not as if it was occasionally junk food was offered for the snack, it was every single week. She came to associate soccer with snacks, which is so sad to me. While I think what you are saying about teaching your children to politely decline offers of junk food is an important thing, that was not the focus of this post. This post was my frustration that junk food is the norm in our children’s sports. I think it’s wrong and I think it needs to change.
This year I brought Teddy Grams and Lemonade as my snack but the thing that *scared* me was that I, personally, bagged the Teddies from a big box. I bought a big box of them, put them in sandwich bags myself. I made lemonade from a mix and served it from a big container into individual cups. Ie. I did not buy individually packaged snacks and juice boxes. Mind, you it was still unhealthy, but in 2 years of playing Tball I have never once seen a mom *not* use individually packaged snacks and drinks. I was honestly waiting for the talking to after about proper snack etiquette. Fortunately no one complained, the kids ate their snack. Now I know for next year to actually cut up some *fruit* instead! Thanks for the reminder! (And yeah-our games end at 9:45. They only finished breakfast an hour ago! Why do they need a snack??)
I have hated this for years, it’s one advantage of moving onto more competitive leagues, no snacks. I did try to at least bake cookies and hand those out, that’s a lot healthier I figured, but I’m the only one who ever did. And preferably real juice as opposed to sugar water.
I’ll admit that I caved to the peer pressure and brought in juice with the snack, but it was a coconut water based juice that I found, so better than the Capri Sun type. It’s so hard! I’m glad to hear it isn’t a thing when they get older and in more competitive leagues.
I am not a mom but I’ll tell you a little story.
I was often teased in school because I was the kid with “that mom” who made the healthy lunch. I had whole wheat bread sandwiches with all the vegetable fixins, home-made fruit roll-ups, carrot or cucumber sticks, and maybe a Capri Sun. Don’t get me started on the fact that I had un-cool ziplock bags and a lame lunch bag. No one wanted to trade lunch with me, ever, and I’ll admit that sometimes I ate part of my lunch and threw the rest out, or brought it home and tossed it away to hide the evidence. We had little bits of processed food in our home but not very much.
This went on from elementary school through part of high school — and what can I say, kids care what other kids think, and I didn’t want to be different and a dork or uncool. But, for having and (mostly) eating all of my healthy lunches, I am better now for it.
These days, I have a refined and developed palette, am probably the healthiest eater of almost anyone I know, don’t shy away from any fruit or vegetable. I do eat processed-bad stuff sometimes, but really stick to homemade meals, simple foods, and things that will benefit my health.
Ironically, I am still the person who gets all the lunch-related comments, though now they are, “wow, you’re so healthy and good….” Insult free!
My wish is for all lunches to turn healthy — let the bad lunches be uncool! I hope it catches on 🙂
Yes–why can’t the bad lunches be uncool?! Ugh. A friend of mine was just telling me a story of a 9 year old girl who hated turkey sandwiches but brought them for lunch everyday so she could sit at a certain lunch table with the cool girls. I was floored. Now I gotta make sure to focus on raising a girl (and boy) who are strong enough to stand up for their own likes and preferences and not be such followers. I know how hard it is when you’re young and want to fit in. It’s so sad.
Thank you! This was spot on. We all need to start being more vocal.
Amen, thank you. My kids are only 2 and 3 and I am incountering this during church nursery group where they have goldfish and graham crackers. My kids just had breakfast but know they get these at church. I wish more and more parents would provide healthier options. My son starts mini kicker soccer this fall and I am going to do my best to bring healthy snacks. THank you