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The snacking habits of children can be a cause for concern. Little research has been undertaken on the snacking habits of Mauritian schoolchildren. This study was conducted to identify the popular snacks upper primary schoolchildren (8‐12 year old) buy at school. It also aimed at determining the factors that influenced children’s purchase of snacks.

Twelve primary schools were selected using stratified random sampling. Thirty children from each school were involved. Data collection methods included an interviewer‐administered questionnaire and observation of schoolchildren’s snacking habits during lunch‐time. Canteen sellers were also interviewed to gather information about the most popular snacks and their cost.

Findings revealed that most of the popular snacks were high in sugar, fat, energy or salt. Snacking habit of schoolchildren was significantly associated with age and gender (p<0.05). Children’s snacking habit seemed to be largely influenced by the cost of snacks, their taste and availability, and the amount of pocket money.

Previous studies on snacking habits have focused on lower primary schoolchildren (5‐7 year old) and adolescents, while this study has focused on the upper primary schoolchildren (8‐12 year old). The findings provide a sound basis for health and education authorities to develop a national policy on the sale of nutritious foods in primary school canteens.

This study investigates a particular food practice which takes place in the playground at school: the afternoon snack. During this special moment, children are free to share and swap their snacks, according to their affinities. The study aims to demonstrate how this food consumption is part of the process of children's socialization.

This paper relies on an ethnographic study of children's behaviour during snack time. Two primary schools representing two different social backgrounds are compared. Pupils are aged from six to ten years. The systematic review of children's snacks during a three-month observation period in each school allowed the author to transform the qualitative observations into quantitative data.

The trading of snacks between children gives rise to entire networks, strategies of exchange and sometimes even snacks theft. The food exchanges act as an indicator of social relationships between the kids. In this regard, snack time teaches us even more about children's behavior and socialization. There are two reasons for that, the first one is that the products consumed are chosen, either by the parents or the children themselves and has nothing to do with the lunch served by the school. The second one is that it is a particularly pleasant moment for them, as it is a time for sweet food shared with their peers.

This is a limited monograph of the snacking behaviour of 20 children with the highest attendance to afterschool study.

The originality of that study is to focus on a space-time and a school food practice that are not often investigated by researchers.

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of mothers in administering afternoon snacks to children aged between 6 and 10. Through an exploratory analysis, this study aims at identifying how sociodemographic characteristics of mothers and children and objective and subjective nutritional awareness of the parent influences healthy or unhealthy food choices for the children.

An online survey was submitted to 242 mothers of children attending primary school. Non-parametric correlation using Spearman's coefficient was adopted as an exploratory analysis tool.

The analysis shows that the mothers' level of education and income influence the purchase of snack products. More permissive parents tend to be less well-off, have more than one child and also purchase sweet treats, salty snacks, and sugary drinks more frequently. Furthermore, the results show that parents' perceived subjective awareness is actually lower than their objective awareness, but also that both types of knowledge positively influence the purchase of healthy snacks.

There is extensive research documenting the importance of parents in reducing the risk of obesity; however, their influence on snack intake has not been widely discussed. Furthermore, the association between the occurrence of obesity and parents' behaviour regarding their children's snacking remains unclear. To bridge this gap, this study focuses on a meal which is often linked to poor eating habits: the afternoon snack.

Snacking contributes to one-quarter of children’s total daily energy intake in the USA, with many snack foods being nutrient-poor and energy-dense. Snacking and sugary beverage consumption have been identified as potential contributors to childhood overweight and obesity and may play a particularly important role among children from socioeconomically disadvantaged households that generally display higher rates of obesity. This exploratory study investigated associations between consumption of snack foods, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and overweight and obesity in children from low-income households.

Data from households that participated in a multi-state cost-offset (CO-CSA) community supported agriculture intervention in 2016 and 2017 (n = 305) were analyzed. Fixed effect regression models were used to estimate associations between child monthly consumption of salty snack foods; sweet snack foods and SSBs; and child weight status, accounting for demographic characteristics.

No associations were found between snack or SSB consumption and child overweight. However, household income was significantly, negatively related to all three consumption variables (Salty snacks: ß = −0.09, SE = 0.04, p = 0.02; Sweet snacks: ß= −0.10, SE = 0.04, p = 0.01; SSB: ß= −0.21, SE = 0.05, p = 0.0001). The results suggest that household income may play an important role in children’s snacking and SSB behaviors among more disadvantaged households.

Factors beyond snack food and SSB consumption should be explored to better understand childhood overweight and obesity, and to inform future obesity interventions.

Socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity are an ongoing policy-relevant issue within the USA and internationally. This study provides new information about child snacking behaviors in a unique, low-income population and contributes to the evidence base regarding the role household context in shaping child consumption behaviors.

Aims to assess the effectiveness of a child‐to‐child approach to promote healthier snacking in primary school children. A total of 55 schools in North and West Belfast were matched for socio‐economic status (SES). Ten schools were randomly selected and allocated into intervention and control groups. A total of 482 children took part. Older intervention children were given the “snacks facts” programme and became “teachers” in the child‐to‐child intervention. All children had baseline and final assessments made of their dental health knowledge (older children only), snacking knowledge and behaviours using questionnaires and rubbish bags. Older intervention children had greater increases in their mean knowledge scores compared with control children. Older intervention children had greater decreases in mean cariogenic snacking scores compared with control children. Younger children attending higher SES schools had significant decrease in mean cariogenic snacking score compared with children attending lower SES schools. Concludes that the child‐to‐child approach provided an avenue by which children improved their dental health knowledge and modified their snacking habits during break‐time at school.

This paper aims to examine the perceptions of the visual packaging of snacks and nutrition knowledge among preschool children. Packages serve as persuasive media at the point of purchase.

In this paper 13 interviews with four-year-olds were conducted. Children sorted seven snacks that implied fruit into categories based on perceptions of fun, taste, parent’s choice and “nutrition”. Children also drew trees with food that would make them healthy or not healthy.

Children attended to the package elements more than the product. All children selected the character fruit snack as their preferred choice; however, perceptions for fun and taste varied among snacks. Perceptions of healthiness showed evidence of heuristics (e.g. sugar = bad; fruit = good). Some children were able to understand that their parents’ choices may be different from their own.

Because of the small sample size, it is not possible to generalize results to all children. Children seemed to understand that the character may not convey “healthy” or “taste”, but they still chose the snack with a character.

Children as young as four can understand nutrition heuristics and may/may not use those heuristics in product preferences.

Children may be able to reason about their own preferences and others’ preferences at a preoperational stage of development.

Previous research indicates that older children are attracted by characters. The findings show that younger children also prefer characters but may be capable of disentangling the various associations of “characters”.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the IKEA-effect (Norton et al., 2012) – better liking for self-crafted products than for identical products crafted by others – can be exploited to increase liking and consumption of vegetable snacks in children.

A between-subjects experiment was conducted at an after school care facility. In total, 86 children aged four to six either crafted a peacock with vegetables or with non-food objects following an example. After the task, children ate snack vegetables ad libitum, and rated their liking for the vegetables and pride in crafting the peacock.

No significant main effect of the vegetable snack creation on consumption and liking was observed. Also, perceived pride did not mediate the effect of self-crafting vegetable snacks on consumption of and liking for vegetables.

Vegetable consumption did not differ between children who were either simply exposed to vegetable snacks while crafting or those who were crafting the vegetable snacks themselves. The equal consumption might suggest that this is caused by simple exposure, but more research is needed comparing self-crafting and exposure to a condition where there is no initial exposure to vegetables.

Although the IKEA-effect has been demonstrated in adults, this is one of the first studies evaluating the IKEA-effect in children and as a means to increase liking for a generally disliked product in this target group, i.e. vegetables. The IKEA-effect could not be replicated under these more stringent conditions, where the experimental set-up enabled disentangling exposure and crafting effects.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain children's perception of fruit and fruit snacks and the influences on their choice.

One hundred primary school children (the majority aged 7‐11 years), from three schools, were surveyed or interviewed. A quota sample was taken with a balance of age and gender. A questionnaire survey (n = 50) plus a series of focus groups (n = 50) were carried out.

The questionnaire results showed that the children perceived fruit as likeable, healthy, convenient, low cost and available. Dried and packed fruits were of lower levels on these attributes but newer manufactured snacks were likeable and convenient, but viewed as unhealthy and costly. Focus groups revealed similar perceptions except in the case of fresh fruit which was seen as lacking convenience in terms of poor storage properties and waste.

The paper uses a convenience sample with no socio‐economic variation.

The paper offers new information on new fruit snack forms.

The aim of this article is to examine the perception of various snack alternatives and the relevant negative and positive associations they may have with key adult groups, including any potential barriers and drivers relating to the uptake of healthier snack options.

The approach takes the form of a qualitative focus group study involving a series of key adult consumer groups, including those deemed more likely and those less likely to take up healthy snack options.

Despite increased health factor awareness across key adult snacking groups, there remains a perception of food “snacks” as a worthwhile, if basically unhealthy, “treat” within their overall food consumption. Many adults did show some concerns about specific diet and health‐related aspects of many snack products and would like to be tempted by healthier versions. Amongst the drivers for healthy snack uptake, local source attributes were generally rated highly by all; these and other “natural” and “healthy” snack claims, including fairtrade and organic labels, were positively received provided that the key, hedonic “treat” experience attributes could still be delivered. When considering the provision of snacks for children, the customers' choice processes appeared to be much more health‐based, showing apparent “nest” snack choice behaviours – or stronger “nesting” behaviours in mothers of young children.

The study was restricted to a relatively small sample in an area limited to the county of Dorset in the South of England, potentially more focused on countryside local foods.

Areas of marketing focus are suggested that could promote healthy snack choices in adult consumers.

The paper examines snacks within the desired snack experience dimensions of key consumer groups and suggests key attributes, associations and thinking‐processes behind healthy snack choice behaviours.

Snacks cover an important percentage of children's energy intake. Children prefer and select, tasty and attractive snacks, without noticing their dietary value. The purpose of this study was to record the physical activity of children of the sixth grade of Public school and to examine the effect of physical activity on snacks' choice and the interaction of physical activity and sex in the choice of healthy snacks.

The participants were 338 students (164 boys and 174 girls) of sixth grade of public elementary of Thessaloniki. For the statistic analysis the SPSS statistical program was used.

According to the results 63.3 per cent of students (30.5 per cent girls and 32.8 per cent boys) participated systematically in physical activity sessions. There was a positive effect of physical activity on the weekly intake of pear, apple, orange, natural fruit juice and spinach pie and a negative on soda, p<0.05. There was also an important interaction between physical activity and sex in biscuits, pizza and spinach pie consumption, p<0.05. Male and female students of the sixth grade did not seem to have healthy nutrition behavior regarding their snack selection. There seems to be a positive effect of physical activity on snacks choice of children.

The paper highlights how it is necessary for the small children to be educated in how to be fed healthy not only in their main meals, but also in the intermediary. Furthermore physical activity status should be taken under account when designing a nutrition intervention program.