Halloween: an Opportunity to Teach Healthy Eating?
added 10/25/10
Halloween is a holiday that might make some dietitians cringe, but not this one. In our house we enjoyed Halloween trick or treating and costumes and of course giant amounts of candy, but after that night, we spread out our treats for awhile in our brown bag lunches as desserts and snacks until it was gone or we were sick of it. Who knew my mom was right on track with the same kind of advice one today’s top dietitians offers!
Ellyn Satter, an internationally known dietitian and child-feeding expert has some similarly wise guidance for managing Halloween treats at your house.
Satter regularly presents the solid research that backs up her advice. For example: she refers to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirming that sweets-deprived girls load up on forbidden foods when they weren’t even hungry and tend to be fatter, not thinner. Girls who were allowed treats on a regular basis ate them moderately, if at all, and were thinner.
Satter recommends using Halloween candy as a learning opportunity for your child. “Work toward having your child be able to manage his own stash. When he comes home from trick or treating, let him lay out his booty, gloat over it, sort it and eat as much of it as he wants. Let him do the same the next day. Then have him put it away and relegate it to meal- and snack-time: a couple of small pieces at meals for dessert and as much as he wants for snack time.”
If he can follow the rules, having candy at meal time and snack time only, and not grazing on it all day long- (making him not hungry for meals), he gets to keep control of the stash. Otherwise, you control it letting him have the treats only at meal time and snack time. Satter recommends offering milk with the candy to boost the nutrition of the snack.
She states the key to Halloween candy overload is to relegate it to meal and snack-time only. All-day grazing is not allowed. Children can have Halloween candy for snacks and dessert, with parents retaining their leadership role in choosing the rest of the food that goes into the meal. This kind of structure means that candy won’t spoil a child’s diet or, by depriving him of Halloween treats altogether, lead to eating behaviors that could make him too fat.
Halloween is a big holiday with kids- it can also be one that actually teaches them about the healthy way to fit treats into their day.
Now that you are ok with how to manage the candy overload, you still might want to mix it up by handing out cool non-candy treats. Here are some ideas for food and nonfood Halloween give-aways:
Healthy but fun foods:
- Single serving packages of nuts or sunflower seeds (ask about allergies first!)
- 100-calorie whole grain crackers or other 100-calorie snack packs.
- String Cheese Sticks
- Granola bars
- Single serving bags of tortilla chips
- Single serving 100% juice boxes, chocolate milk boxes, or chocolate soymilk boxes
- Low fat microwave popcorn packet
- Single serving dried fruit packet
- Fruit leather
- Calcium-fortified hot cocoa packets
Non-food treats:
- “Dollar Store” jump ropes
- Decorative Stickers
- Reflective stickers
- Mini crayons
- Glow-in-the-dark balls
- Sidewalk chalk
- Pencils
- Erasers
- Mini notepads
Happy Halloween!
For more information about strategies to encourage healthful eating behaviors visit: www.ellynsatter.com
