Snacking Explained: How Kids Regulate Caloric Intake

Most kids are naturally able to limit snacking to when they’re hungry, but parents should pay attention when snacking becomes more than a tie-over between meals.

“Most children, especially young children, have very good regulatory capacity on their caloric intake,” says Samantha Miller, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with the Child Mind Institute who specializes in child and adolescent behavior disorders. Children grow quickly, Dr. Miller adds, and a lot is going on with their brain, body, and hormones, which can cause appetite to fluctuate.

Food is fuel for growth, and when they’re hungry, they should be offered a healthy snack. “Most children don’t need someone to impose a regulatory schedule on [snacking], and doing so could result in a power struggle for most typically developing children.”

There is a minority of the population, however, that struggles with emotional and behavioral disorders, and these can be tied to food. “Parents need to monitor that their child is not eating emotionally, that his snacking pattern is not tied to an emotional state,” Dr. Miller explains. If a child becomes upset, angry, irritable, or sad and then wants a snack, and this is a pattern seen over time, it could be a red flag that something else is going on.

“The potential is that the child is trying to soothe with food,” Dr. Miller says. She goes on to warn that parents can unintentionally shape this behavior in their children. “When children become wildly upset, what is being paired with that in their emotional environment? [Are the parents saying] ‘Let’s have a cookie’ or distracting them with food?” Over time, a pattern like that could potentially lead to some unhealthy habits and an unhealthy dynamic around food, she says.