Healthier Trick or Treating: Tips on Navigating the Candy Convo
It is suggested that trick-or-treating evolved from a tradition whereby people impersonated the spirits, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. S. V. Peddle suggests they “personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune”.[1]
Halloween candy is a relatively new staple of the holiday – only first becoming popular and widely distributed in the 1920s and 1930s and not becoming a major player until the 1950s (2).
Prior to that, in the mid 1900s, apples and nuts were considered major treats!
Wouldn’t that be nice!
Even before I was a mom myself, I knew better than to suggest that clients offer fruit to trick or treaters; not only was I a child of a mom who did just that (“raisins are nature’s candy”!, she used to say).
In there was also a trend in the 80s, when I was a child, to recommend against consuming anything other than prepackaged candy, due to parental concerns of things being tampered with or poisoned.
And now, here we are today in a society where the prevalence of obesity among U.S. children and adolescents is 19.7%1 (approximately 14.7 million U.S. youths aged 2–19 years have obesity) (3).
It’s no longer the case that Halloween, and Easter as well, was an example of the rare occasion when kids might be presented with the chance to over indulge on sugar; now, the average child is eating 17 teaspoons /day, which translates into 57 pounds of sugar consumed per person per year.
Furthermore, candy is not what is used to be; prior to having access to white sugar and corn syrup early confectioners used honey as a sweetener and mixed it with various fruits, nuts, herbs, and spices (5).
Now, it’s a literal recipe for disaster, a combination of artificial dyes, flavors, binding agents and preservatives, not to mention synthetic chemicals designed to create addiction at a very early age.
Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavorings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain’s reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation (6).
So, what is a health-minded parent to do?
The other factor, a separate conversation, is how to navigate these territories without leaving your child feeling left out?
Below are my top tips for creating a healthier Trick or Treating experience; it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
First and foremost, explain why these things (not food) are not good choices. As a mom of a now 5 year old, I’ve learned firsthand that our kids understand way more than we might anticipate. This is not to say that upon finding out something contains corn syrup they will no longer ask for it; but they begin to understand the rationale, just as they learn why veggies are good choices, sugar is not. And no, everything in moderation cannot be the suggestion as many of the things on the shelves in the store are not actually food.
Map out an ideal scenario, either in your mind or actually written out of when your child may have something that may not be on the top of your healthiest food choice. Just like you might plan to have a few glasses of wine this weekend at an event you’re attending and subsequently focus on more alkaline forming food that day, making sue your little one has extra veggies, water and good proteins and fats during the day of will help to ensure a balanced blood sugar level.
Make a plan prior to going trick or treating about what will be eaten while they are out, and what will be saved for home. Making an agreement that he will have two pieces of candy from neighbors you know in advance will help to prevent a free for all and an inevitable sugar crash.
Encourage kids to take one piece of candy, not handfuls, at each stop. Remind them that they need to share with the other kids and that will also help to reinforce not enduing up with several extra pounds of sugar to deal with later.
Check in with yourself and make sure you’re ok with the plan. It took me a while, and believe me, I’d much rather my son never ate any corn syrup or hydrogenated oil, but I do feel that allowing for these occasional (and occasional is the key word) times when they can participate in these traditional kids’ activities is important.
There’s also something to be said for a learning experience here; when my son was three, he snuck into his Easter Basket, into which the Easter Bunny had left five eggs and he’d eaten two per our permission and he went for the remaining three on his own volition, he ended up with a terrible stomach ache.
He knew exactly what the reason was and he made an announcement that he would never eat too much candy at once again.
Lessons learned all around.
Happy Halloween!
(1)Peddle, S. V. (2007). Pagan Channel Islands: Europe’s Hidden Heritage. p. 54
(2) https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/halloween-food-candy-history-apple-peels-cec/index.html
(3) https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood-obesity-facts/childhood-obesity-facts.html
(4) https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/php/data-research/added-sugars.html
(5)https://www.britannica.com/topic/candy-food
(6) https://usrtk.org/ultra-processed-foods/addictive/
