“Did you bring a snack?”

This is the first thing I hear after I pick up my kids from school. It’s what I hear after 15 minutes of playing at the park. It’s what I hear before piano lessons, after piano lessons, before swimming lessons, after swimming lessons…

No doubt, my kids are snack-obsessed and they always expect mom to be toting around mini carrots, bunny crackers, dried mango, rice cakes, fruit leathers, salted seaweed. And if I dare forget to pack a snack it’s never a problem because every other parent at the park has a purse weighted down with items from the Whole Foods snack aisle, and these parents are always eager to dole out little nibbles to my children.

Snacks are readily available everywhere. Starbucks now sells packaged snacks for kids. Many Whole Foods stores feature a kids’ snack table where little hands are free to take a packet of organic crackers or a fruit leather. At Costco you can pick up gallon-size boxes of goldfish. At the end of a children’s soccer game, there’s always a pile of sliced oranges, cinnamon bread, or GoGurts. No wonder nobody wants to eat their dinner!

It’s reached a point where I’ve begun to wonder, could this whole snacking thing be spiraling out of control? Could our children be eating way too many crackers, even if the crackers are organic and locally made?