Research has stated that there has been a considerable amount of increase in the calories taken by American kids which amounted to 168 snack calories per day in their diets.

Children are munching on cookies, granola bars, peanut butter and crackers and chips more than they are having meals, which means for many it would be 1,176 calories more a week and 13.5 pounds of body fat a year.

Barry Popkin from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an author of a study said that these in between non-meal munches means more than a quarter of their average daily caloric intake.

The research has established how much the $68 billion-a-year industry is contribute to growing childhood obesity by selling these munchies.

Dr Judy Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said, “The findings point to one factor that helped push the rate of child obesity to 16.4 percent in 2007 — an increase of about 10 percent since 2003 alone.”