health tips franziska | 13 Oct 2010
Snacking: Friend or Foe?
There are a lot of mixed messages out there like is snacking good or bad for you?
Snacking can help keep your energy up, keep you focused, and help with weight loss and maintenance. Like all nutrition you have to listen to your body and focus on what you are eating and how much.
A criticism of snacking is that we live in a snacking world and eating all the time can
lead to loss of appetite awareness. Years ago snacks were not such a common part of our lifestyle and culture. Now you go anywhere and people are eating in their cars, while walking down the street, etc. etc. With so much more food around us including specifically designed and marketed “snack foods”, people often chose to snack when they are not hungry and any excess calories in the diet can lead to weight gain. More importantly a lot of the marketed “snack foods” are high in fat, sugar and sodium which when eaten in excess can lead to serious health issues (obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes).
We should be feeding our bodies foods that provide us nutrients (think vitamins, fiber, protein, whole grains) and when people are in tune with their bodies and hunger signals then we often want to eat every 4-5 hours. Ideally, people should eat when they are mildly hungry – that is not uncomfortable or irritable. However, given our busy lives we often lose the connection with our hunger and fullness cues so we skip meals because we don’t realize we are hungry or we snack too much and never let ourselves feel hunger. Both are unhealthy behaviors.
The take home is to listen to your body – if you are stressed at the office and forget to eat lunch because you never felt hungry then take a moment, take a deep breath, place a hand on your belly and try to connect with how you are feeling. When we give ourselves a moment we then often realize we are hungry. If 4-5 hours have gone by without eating then your body probably needs some fuel.
We are all born instinctively knowing when we are hungry or full. Babies don’t have to think about appetite awareness – they know when they need food and they stop eating when they are satisfied. Take a moment several times a day to tune into your body and over time you will reconnect with your appetite awareness and your body will guide you to eat when appropriate (snacks included) 
.
