As your little ghouls and monsters are going through their candy loot after going trick-or-treating last night, every parent’s concern is how damaging these treats can be for their child’s health.
Some parents resort to only letting their children have one or two pieces of candy, or even doing away with all of the candy their children bring home.
But does that get to the root of the problem?
This morning, Global sat down with registered dietician Diana Steele to examine the candy that was trick-or-treated by three children aged 8, 6 and 3 in North Vancouver (see photo attached).
The first thing that drew our attention was the amount of candy in the bucket that was almost filled to the top with various kinds of treats.
“Eating a bucket full of candy is going to cause problems, not to mention just nutritionally, but they are not going to feel very well. But, there are not a lot of kids that actually get through a whole bucket of candy,” said Steele.
Steele says lately, a lot of people are being more mindful and giving out healthier treats, like mini granola bars or fruit gummies that are made of 100% real juice.
Most of the more traditional candy, however, is packed with sugar and in some cases, has no nutritional labels at all.
“So you might be able to read the ingredient list, which is helpful if you are trying to avoid gluten, for example. But, otherwise you won’t know how many calories are in a package,” says Steele.
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But counting calories is not always a solution. What is more important, says Steele, is teaching your kids how to self-limit.
“For little children, you know a two-year-old that has never had candy before, it is important to start to teach them about how they might not feel well if they have too many, and to encourage them to have a piece of fruit before or have a glass of milk with it, so it is not just the candy.”
And if a child does not learn to take responsibility for their own eating habits, they will tend to over-indulge when they finally get control over that candy.
“If you tell them that they can only have one or two or three pieces a day, then they are going to feel like they are not getting enough or are deprived. So when you walk away from that candy bag, they may go in and grab whatever they can. So they are going to learn that deprivation means gorging later when they get the opportunity, and that is not teaching them long-lasting skills about eating candy.”
Steele says parents can also set some guidelines around when is the best time to have candy. You can set a rule that there is no candy before dinner or limit the amount of time that the kids are out trick-or-treating by encouraging them to come back for fireworks, for example. So the less time they are out, the less candy they will end up collecting.
“You will probably notice that after a couple of weeks the novelty of the candy wears off,” says Steele. “You are going to find that they are not going to eat it as much and they are going to get rid of it anyways. ”
She says giving some of that candy away to a food bank can be a good idea. But ultimately parents need to remember it is Halloween, and eating a few extra candy bars won’t hurt, as long as it does not become part of your child’s regular eating habits.
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