| Last updated at 12:18 AM on 31/10/07 |
Keeping track of the goodies 
Tips to make sure kids don’t go overboard on Halloween treats
MARGARET PROUSE 
The Guardian
In Canada, Christmas begins when Halloween ends. On Nov. 1, Christmas stock appears and decorations go up in most stores.
Parents of children and youth will tell you that the seasons overlap in another way. For them, Halloween can last until Christmas. Trick or treaters will come home tonight with pillow cases stuffed with enough candy, chips and cheesies to last until mid-December.
Parents want their children to have fun on festive occasions like Halloween, but they also want them to be healthy and well-nourished. Here’s the conundrum: does Halloween interfere with the supportive environment we want to create, to make healthy eating easier for families? How much control can or should parents exert over the Halloween stash?
Some parents think there is just too much candy in the house after Halloween, and they give some to the food bank. Mike MacDonald, manager of the Upper Room Food Bank in Charlottetown, says people donate some candy and other junk food throughout the year, and a bit more after Halloween. First choice for donations is food such as fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and nutritious canned foods, says MacDonald, but he accepts donations of Halloween treats, and passes them along to clients.
No one I talked to suggested that Halloween is to blame for the increasing incidence of childhood obesity. Jennifer Taylor, associate professor, Department of Family and Nutritional Sciences at UPEI and co-chair of the P.E.I. Healthy Eating Alliance, reminded me that Halloween has been going on for decades, and yet there were few concerns about childhood obesity during my childhood or hers. Many factors have led to higher body weights in children.
Diane Finegood, scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes, says Halloween, one day of the year, doesn’t create childhood obesity. She says what children eat during the year is more important than what happens on one particular day, and she’s more concerned that food is marketed to children in ways designed to create an association between food products and fun.
As children may be munching on Halloween treats for weeks, Taylor and Finegood agree we should work toward a change in what we give to trick or treaters. Taylor says we need a cultural shift toward giving healthy treats such as juice boxes and some non-food treats. If more people give other fun treats instead of candy, such as little games and toys, says Finegood, we can reduce the amount of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food in the treat sacks.
It will take years for that cultural shift to take place. Starting tonight, though, families have to decide how to manage the treats that children and youth bring home.
Finegood says the challenge for parents is to help their kids spread out the consumption over a long period of time and to return treats to treat status, rather than being what’s eaten all the time. How they manage the Halloween booty, she says, depends on individual situations.
Ellyn Satter, internationally recognized authority on eating and feeding, says eating candy is a wonderful part of being a child and children need to learn to manage eating sweets and to keep sweets in proportion to other foods they eat.
In her book, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, (Bull Publishing Company, Boulder, Color, 2000), she suggests that when a child comes home from trick or treating, he or she should be able to lay out the treats and eat as much as he or she wants. She suggests the same routine for the next day. After that, she says, the child should put the stash away and keep it for snack time and mealtime, having a couple of small pieces at meals for dessert and a couple of small pieces for snack time. That way, she says, Halloween treats won’t crowd out other food, and the supply will get used up.
Taylor says parents and children can negotiate fair ways to manage Halloween treat eating based on the needs of the child, for example, whether he or she is susceptible to tooth decay. Together, they need to decide what it fair and then set clear expectations that parents and children will honour the decision.
Negotiating and monitoring may be most challenging with older youth, who are influenced more by their peers than by their parents. Finegood recognizes youth are concerned with the present and do not think much about future health and well-being.
She puts Halloween into the context of how children develop attitudes about healthy living, suggesting that parents engage their kids in discussions about healthy eating and active living and ensure there are healthy choices at home. Parental action is influential, too, and she encourages parents to eat well and to stay active.
In Child of Mine, Satter says, “if parents are doing a good job of feeding, even a few days of candy eating aren’t going to impair a child’s nutritional health. If they aren’t, all the candy restriction in the world is not going to make any difference.”
Margaret Prouse, a home economist, can be reached by writing her at RR#2, North Wiltshire, P.E.I., C0A 1Y0, or by e-mail at prouse@pei.sympatico.ca.
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