Just in time for Halloween there’s another study telling parents sugar is bad for, well, just about everyone but especially kids (And did you hear? Bacon will kill you too!). While the headlines generated by studies like these often over-hype their findings, they do serve as an important reminder that parents need to play an active role in their kids’ diets and encourage healthy habits. But should parents take this study as a call to stop the tradition of Halloween trick-or-treating?
You can almost hear the internal debate tormenting too many parents: All that sugar! But, sugar is toxic, right? And it’s responsible for all the problems in the world, including Syria. Do I let them eat all the candy in their bags? Two pieces? Seven? What’s the right number? Do I just let them eat until they develop an upset stomach and beg for a cracker and a ginger ale (diet, of course)? Do I tell them we’ll dole out the candy piece by piece until it’s gone (while I secretly throw most of it away)? Or maybe I should participate in my local dentist’s candy confiscation program: “C’mon kids; you get this snazzy toothbrush when you bring in your evil, cavity-causing candy!”
The truth is, Halloween is a dinosaur—a relic of an era when people had some perspective and knew that there were appropriate times to let the rules—even the food rules—ease a bit and have some fun. Today’s parents need to take a deep breath, recognize that one night of indulging in a candy feast isn’t going to do any lasting harm, and try to enjoy a good time with their kids.
Sadly, that’s a tough job for many parents who are so dedicated to a set of rules about food that they’ve developed what some psychiatrists are calling Orthorexia—an unhealthy fixation on eating healthy and consuming (or avoiding) only certain types of food. This inflexibility has made Halloween a troubling and very disruptive time for some parents.
The fear of any unhealthy eating is being fed by many bloggers who amp up the scary messages. Take Vani Hari (known as The Food Babe who suggests on her website that handing out the familiar and much-loved candy many of us remember from our trick-or-treating days (Snickers, Reese’s, Butterfingers, Tootsie Rolls) is tantamount to murdering children (yet somehow, we survived!). No surprise, Hari offers an alternative—the wildly expensive, hard-to-find, artisanal, organic, small-batch candy that she promotes on her popular website.
Echoing Hari’s hysteria, another parenting website gives tips on how to avoid “toxic” Halloween candy and go GMO-free. Still other mommy bloggers have re-envisioned that 70’s trick-or-treat letdown—the penny roll—giving moms tips on how to prepare candy-free giveaways. Of course, these tips ignore the extra cost and hassle associated with these alternatives.
One mom blogger (with a ton of time on her hands) recommends giving out cellophane bags filled with orange Legos cinched with a green ribbon on top. See what she did there? It looks like a pumpkin! The kid won’t notice but the moms—cooing about how perfect!perfect!perfect! the treat is—surely will. And that’s what really matters, right? Impressing the other moms. Because, who wants to look like the insensitive jerk in the neighborhood handing out poisonous candy bars?
Perhaps some moms are up to the task of creating these crafty handouts, but others have laundry to do, homework to help with, dinner to prepare, and other things that take time and energy. They should know it’s okay to opt for the cheap bag of candy.
Even certain Debbie Downer businesses are capitalizing on alarmism. Chipotle—well known for their alarmist marketing strategies—has altered their popular Halloween Boorito promotion ($3-off a burrito if you come in wearing a costume). This Halloween, say goodbye to Halloween fun and say hello to political ideology. To get your cheap burrito, you’ll need to “add something unnecessary to your costume” to coincide with the company’s “unnecessary ingredients in fast food are creepy” message. Nothing says celebrate like making your customers promote your dystopian food message.
Despite these messages, there are some good and valuable lessons to be eked out of a night dedicated to eating large quantities of sugar. First, kids tend to work pretty hard for their candy and most kids understand that being polite will get you more loot. Second, trick-or-treating requires walking—usually long distances. It seems a fine message to allow a kid to indulge if it’s coupled with some calorie-burning activity. Third, stomach aches will happen and that’s one sure fire way to drive home the consequences of overdoing it. The adult version of this phenomenon is called a hangover, which for generations has helped people keep control. Kids get this lesson a little earlier—after doing the equivalent of a keg stand with corn syrup.
While it may seem provocative to say so, Halloween may just be the healthiest of holidays because the message it conveys is clear: There’s a proper place and appropriate times for candy and a bit of celebration. Halloween and other holidays and events—like a child’s birthday—where food and sugar-filled sweets are central to the celebration don’t cause childhood obesity.
But they do cause happiness and joy and fun and those things are important for kids too.