HHS HealthBeat (April 13, 2010)

Snacktime, snacktime and snacktime

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Think of kids’ snacks as an extra meal a day, and generally a bad one. Researchers report snacking is common – they say, for instance, kids ages 2 to 6 snacked up to 3 times a day. They base that on eating pattern data in four federal surveys covering more than 31,000 young people.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carmen Piernas:

"The proportion of calories from snacking accounted up to 27 percent of the total energy intake in all children between 2 and 18 years old." (9 seconds)

Piernas says snacking is up since the 1970s, and is probably a reason why young people’s weight has gone up, too.

The study in the journal Health Affairs was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 21, 2011