Snacking, Pigging Out, and Bingeing of Teenagers

There are three types of non-meal eating: snacking, pigging out, and bingeing. Snacking is often done after school and after dinner, alone or with friends, and does not necessarily imply excessive eating (although the food is usually excessively caloric). Pigging out is a planned social event. A group of friends get together, usually on weekends, and eats all day. Eighty percent of teenagers pig out with friends. It is fun, organized, excessive eating, a celebration of the weekend, a way to let go, and a way to rebel. Bingeing is not fun; it is usually done alone, when one is feeling empty and out of control. It always ends in feelings of guilt and low self-esteem.

Twenty-five percent of the calories teenagers consume come from snacking. Most snacking is done after school because the teen’s hunger is often ravenous, but it could also the result of boredom or depression. (When snacking alone gets out of hand it becomes a binge.) This is especially true with younger teens, who are expected to go home after school and who find the transition from school to home (where they are often alone) difficult. They come home to an empty house, turn on the television or do their homework, and eat. If there is no ready-to-eat food in the refrigerator or cupboard, they might stop at the corner grocery store on their way home. Older teens often snack in order to keep going through the day, because they don’t eat properly. Sugar snacks give them the buzz they need. Snacking in fast food restaurants is often a social event among older teens.

The kind of food kids snack and pig out on is food that is handy and portable. Grocery stores and fast food establishments thrive on these habits.

The following list represents, in the order of preference, teenagers’ favorite snacks:

Candy

Chocolate       

Sodas                                     

Chips                                      

Ice cream                                

Pizza                                       

Fruit                                       

Fruit juice                               

Carrots                                               

Toast                                      

Chinese food                          

Chocolate milk

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Milk

Chicken

Nuts

Cookies

Pastries

Popcorn

Burritos

Fries

Bagels

Burgers           

Cereal 

Almost all of the foods in this list can be approximated by other foods which have more food value. Teenagers cannot realistically be expected to avoid snacking, but they can at least replace the empty calories with nutritious ones, without sacrificing the flavors they crave. The foods for snacking should be as nutritious as possible. Good foods will be filling and prevent the drop in blood sugar that causes the excess snacking that might eventually evolve into bingeing. Later on in this chapter we will list nutritious equivalents for most of the above foods; they are available at natural food stores and many supermarkets, where more and more space is being devoted to healthy snacks. You will also fid easy-to-follow recipes.

How to Control Snacking

The underlying mechanism forcing you to eat is falling blood sugar. The rule you must remember is to eat foods that provide long-term energy (that is, protein and complex carbohydrates). Vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains are slowly digested in the intestinal tract and the sugars that they finally produce are only slowly, evenly, and gently providing an energy source. Hence the pancreas is not stimulated to squirt out large amounts of insulin which would push the blood sugar down and set up the craving for a quick sugary fix.

Snacking can be the result of hunger; the feeling of an empty stomach can accompany that desire to munch, but not necessarily. When snacking is the result of hunger it means that the meals you are eating are inadequate. If you begin to eat more complex carbohydrates, you will notice less frequent hunger attacks.

Unfortunately, the foods you snack on are so available and visible that sheer willpower can hardly suffice as a means to avoid them; nobody could be expected to have much resistance. But if you begin to use a little forethought and self-examination you might get some perspective on your snacking. There are things you can do that will help you control the habit.

Are You Hungry?

When you are about to begin your daily snacking ritual, chew on a raw carrot or a little popcorn and ask yourself why you want to eat. Are you hungry, OR

• Bored?
• Lonely (or bored and lonely)?
• Tired?
• Tense, so you feel like eating to relax?
• Angry at somebody? (Whom? Why?)
• Anxious about something? (What?)
• Feeling worthless?
• Depressed or upset? (About what?)
• Happy? (About what?)
• Trying to avoid an unpleasant task (such as homework or house chores)?
• Trying to avoid an unpleasant confrontation (with parents, brothers or sisters, friend, boyfriend, or girlfriend)?
• Feelings like you need a reward?
• Going alone with the crowd, which is going to a fast food joint?
• Going alone with the crowd, which has just ordered a delivery of pizza and shakes?
• Trying to forget about the romance that didn’t work?
• Tempted by the food commercials which you’ve just seen on television?
• At the movies, where you always have candy and a coke?
• At the shopping mall, where there are so many ice cream and fast food places that you can’t resist?
• Craving a snack because of the smell of something your mother is baking?
• Just having this inexplicable craving for something sweet and creamy, or salty and crunchy, and can’t get it out of your head?

Replace Snacking with another Activity

Having examined the situation and having eaten some long-acting, complex carbohydrate, you now know that you aren’t really hungry; but that doesn’t keep you from wanting to open a bag of potato chips. The next step is to devise a list of activities which will replace snacking. You can avoid eating by filling your time with something else.

Instead of eating, try one of these activities while you’re watching television:

• Do some kind of handwork (knitting, needlepoint, macramé, mending).
• Play computer games.
• Assemble a jigsaw puzzle.
• Prepare vegetables for meals and snacks (see Chapter 11).
• Iron or sort the laundry.
• Draw or paint.
• Work on your scrapbook.
• Do exercises: sit-ups, leg lifts, etc. This might also be the perfect time of day to get your aerobic exercise. If you exercise during the time when you normally snack because there’s nothing else to do, you will be killing two birds with one stone. It will be less depressing to come home to an empty house if you know that you are going to come home, change right into your running clothes, and go for a jog. If you and your friends normally eat after school, you could all exercise together. Exercising can be a social event just like eating. Usually exercise reduces your appetite, so that you won’t be hungry until dinner. You could also exercise an hour after dinner, another time teenagers often find themselves opening the refrigerator door so that they can munch while they do their homework or watch television. Exercise is one of the best ways to deal with tension or depression; you just feel so good afterward, certainly better than you’d feel after eating a bag of potato chips.
• Take a nap. Sometimes you want to snack because you’re actually tired. A rest would do the trick better than a sugary nothing.
• Take a walk or a bicycle ride. Getting outside, breathing fresh air, will not only take you away from the kitchen, but it will take your mind away from food.
• Walk the dog.
• Give the dog a bath.
• Call a friend.
• Get together with friends to prepare food.
• Take a shower or a long, hot bath.
• Practice the piano.
• Listen to music; dance.
• Sew.
• Wash the car.
• Clean your room.
• Rearrange your closet (you’ve been meaning to go through your old clothes forever; now is the time).
• Do something else you’ve been putting off.
• If you’re with friends, do makeovers or give each other haircut.
• Do your nails.
• Write in your diary.
• Write a letter.
• Read.
• Make some of the healthy snacks in this book.

Keeping a Snacking Notebook

Since eating between meals has more to do with behavior than with hunger, modifying your behavior patterns is the best way to deal with snacking. The first thing to do is to get in touch with your eating behavior, and a good way to begin this by keeping an eating notebook, in which you note down every time you want to eat, and the accompanying circumstances. Record all the times you get the munchies, how you feel at the time, what you crave, etc. If you start taking notes every time you get the urge to eat, you’ll not only learn a lot about yourself, but you’ll also begin to alter your snacking habits. Just writing all these things down will eventually alter your desire to eat (especially if you are overeating; seeing the candy bars add up on your list may shock you out of eating so many). And even if it doesn’t do that much, it will help you replace unhealthy snacks with nutritious ones. Just thinking about all these things helps, and writing them down helps more. Try the notebook for two weeks and let me know.