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Is Giving Out Candy on Halloween Adding to the Obesity Problem?
Replies
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MarcyMavin wrote: »No. What’s contributing to childhood obesity is the after Halloween candy, the thanksgiving candy, Christmas candy, valentine candy, Easter candy, Pick your day of the week candy, breakfast candy, after school candy, I ate one carrot so now I get candy candy. Or whatever junk you want to replace candy with. Catch my drift here?
All true but you forgot stiiting on their butts in front of a screen instead of moving.3 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »I was just sitting here thinking about the probably 10k calories of candy the average kid might be taking home.
It is generally pretty cold does anyone make a pot of soup and give it out in cups?
What are other good alternatives? Seaweed snacks? They are green. Maybe fiber one bars? Or should a person focus on protein? I have a bunch of squid that I could smoke. That seems Halloween-ish.
Discuss.
1) I wouldn't let my kid consume anything not in the original packaging until after I looked at it (unless I knew the people they got it from). Soup, given what could easily be put in it by a nutjob and be undetectable would probably be one of the first things dumped out.
2) Kids have been trick or treating for years before childhood obesity became a thing. If the child has a weight problem (and even if they don't), the parents need to be parents and tell the child beforehand they can keep x number of candy items. Give the rest away or pitch.
Do you check all the food they get from a restaurant too? Maybe the scary nutjob poisoner works there and is not the person giving out delicious and comforting soup on Halloween. Why would you give a pass for people you know? Aren't the dangers always statistically higher from people you know?
Exactly this ^^
I worked in a restaurant for many years. Things "happen" to your food in restaurants before it gets to your table.
Be nice to your servers. Jus' sayin'
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »I was just sitting here thinking about the probably 10k calories of candy the average kid might be taking home.
It is generally pretty cold does anyone make a pot of soup and give it out in cups?
What are other good alternatives? Seaweed snacks? They are green. Maybe fiber one bars? Or should a person focus on protein? I have a bunch of squid that I could smoke. That seems Halloween-ish.
Discuss.
1) I wouldn't let my kid consume anything not in the original packaging until after I looked at it (unless I knew the people they got it from). Soup, given what could easily be put in it by a nutjob and be undetectable would probably be one of the first things dumped out.
2) Kids have been trick or treating for years before childhood obesity became a thing. If the child has a weight problem (and even if they don't), the parents need to be parents and tell the child beforehand they can keep x number of candy items. Give the rest away or pitch.
Do you check all the food they get from a restaurant too? Maybe the scary nutjob poisoner works there and is not the person giving out delicious and comforting soup on Halloween. Why would you give a pass for people you know? Aren't the dangers always statistically higher from people you know?
Checking kids candy and throwing away homemade items received from people you don't know wasn't something I made up. You will find the same guideline on most police/community Halloween safety lists.
I have yet to see a similar warning for restaurant food.5 -
I was just sitting here thinking about the probably 10k calories of candy the average kid might be taking home.
It is generally pretty cold does anyone make a pot of soup and give it out in cups?
What are other good alternatives? Seaweed snacks? They are green. Maybe fiber one bars? Or should a person focus on protein? I have a bunch of squid that I could smoke. That seems Halloween-ish.
Discuss.
Eh, just toss some candy at the kids and give out airline liquor bottles to the parents. They're the ones who really need a treat on Halloween.15 -
It's impacting obesity by 1/365 or 0.0027.8
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I was just sitting here thinking about the probably 10k calories of candy the average kid might be taking home.
It is generally pretty cold does anyone make a pot of soup and give it out in cups?
What are other good alternatives? Seaweed snacks? They are green. Maybe fiber one bars? Or should a person focus on protein? I have a bunch of squid that I could smoke. That seems Halloween-ish.
Discuss.
Definitely do not hand out anything homemade. There are a bunch of psychos who will put all sorts of nefarious things in their homemade treats (razors, pins, DNA samples, etc.).
This has actually never happened. The only cases of tampered Halloween treats have been parents killing their own kids.
For those who want to disagree: mentalfloss.com/article/12914/brief-history-sick-people-tampering-halloween-candy
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If you just hand out little treats, no. If you EAT all those little and not so little treats, YES!1
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The average calories in a fun size candy bar looks to be about 80. The average number of houses a kid hits up for candy on Halloween looks to be slightly less than 50.
So the kid’s total calorie take on Halloween (assuming no houses are giving out squid) is 4000.
Subtract out however many calories said kid burns by waking to those 50 houses while wearing a costume and carrying this bag of candy (and squid).
So...massive impact to obesity (making the very false assumption that the parents eat none of the candy and the kid actually remembers he to she has the candy and eats it all) is about...1 pound.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED NOW!8 -
I’m giving out gummi bears, which are FAT FREE, so they can’t make you fat.7
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Unless you're a so-called "sugar addict". To them, gummies are of the devil.SuzySunshine99 wrote: »I’m giving out gummi bears, which are FAT FREE, so they can’t make you fat.
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iheartmyyorkie wrote: »
Unless you're a so-called "sugar addict". To them, gummies are of the devil.SuzySunshine99 wrote: »I’m giving out gummi bears, which are FAT FREE, so they can’t make you fat.
And I am not so cruel as to give children sugar-free gummies.8 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »Theoldguy1 wrote: »I was just sitting here thinking about the probably 10k calories of candy the average kid might be taking home.
It is generally pretty cold does anyone make a pot of soup and give it out in cups?
What are other good alternatives? Seaweed snacks? They are green. Maybe fiber one bars? Or should a person focus on protein? I have a bunch of squid that I could smoke. That seems Halloween-ish.
Discuss.
1) I wouldn't let my kid consume anything not in the original packaging until after I looked at it (unless I knew the people they got it from). Soup, given what could easily be put in it by a nutjob and be undetectable would probably be one of the first things dumped out.
2) Kids have been trick or treating for years before childhood obesity became a thing. If the child has a weight problem (and even if they don't), the parents need to be parents and tell the child beforehand they can keep x number of candy items. Give the rest away or pitch.
Do you check all the food they get from a restaurant too? Maybe the scary nutjob poisoner works there and is not the person giving out delicious and comforting soup on Halloween. Why would you give a pass for people you know? Aren't the dangers always statistically higher from people you know?
Checking kids candy and throwing away homemade items received from people you don't know wasn't something I made up. You will find the same guideline on most police/community Halloween safety lists.
I have yet to see a similar warning for restaurant food.
Well if there is a guideline involved there is no reason to think for ourselves, is there?6 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »The average calories in a fun size candy bar looks to be about 80. The average number of houses a kid hits up for candy on Halloween looks to be slightly less than 50.
So the kid’s total calorie take on Halloween (assuming no houses are giving out squid) is 4000.
Subtract out however many calories said kid burns by waking to those 50 houses while wearing a costume and carrying this bag of candy (and squid).
So...massive impact to obesity (making the very false assumption that the parents eat none of the candy and the kid actually remembers he to she has the candy and eats it all) is about...1 pound.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED NOW!
Where are you getting those numbers? I can't have been the only house last year to give out multiple pieces of candy per kid. I gave 4 plus 2 toys. Those bags were full of treats. There is no way that was only a pound of candy.0 -
iheartmyyorkie wrote: »Fiber bars? Squid? Please. I vote for giving out kids apple cider vinegar on Halloween. It'll rot their teeth like candy, but at least it will reboot their metabolisms. Um, right?
Given what my friends have told me about the effect of fast sugar on their children**, I think it's likely that the candy reboots their little metabolisms just fine, without resorting to cruel and unusual ACV.
** Relying on anecdotal evidence, as I have no offspring of my own.0 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »The average calories in a fun size candy bar looks to be about 80. The average number of houses a kid hits up for candy on Halloween looks to be slightly less than 50.
So the kid’s total calorie take on Halloween (assuming no houses are giving out squid) is 4000.
Subtract out however many calories said kid burns by waking to those 50 houses while wearing a costume and carrying this bag of candy (and squid).
So...massive impact to obesity (making the very false assumption that the parents eat none of the candy and the kid actually remembers he to she has the candy and eats it all) is about...1 pound.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED NOW!
Where are you getting those numbers? I can't have been the only house last year to give out multiple pieces of candy per kid. I gave 4 plus 2 toys. Those bags were full of treats. There is no way that was only a pound of candy.
I got those from the mighty google machine. The calories per fun size candy bar ranged from 30-110 with most being 70-80.
And 50 candy bars is more than a pound.
Where I live-the kids take one. I don’t count what’s in their bags.
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iheartmyyorkie wrote: »Fiber bars? Squid? Please. I vote for giving out kids apple cider vinegar on Halloween. It'll rot their teeth like candy, but at least it will reboot their metabolisms. Um, right?
Given what my friends have told me about the effect of fast sugar on their children**, I think it's likely that the candy reboots their little metabolisms just fine, without resorting to cruel and unusual ACV.
** Relying on anecdotal evidence, as I have no offspring of my own.
It is not their metabolism it is their NEAT. Bouncing off walls and dancing to the same children's song they have played repeatedly for 4 hours burns a lot of calories.3 -
What about the Dad tax? Is it contributing to Dad Bod?9
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To respond to the initial question, no I don't think passing out candy on Halloween adds to the obesity problem. It's one day out of the year. It's tradition. It's fun.
Personally, unless I knew you, I wouldn't let my child take soup from you. It would be really easy for an evil person to add chemicals to soup. 😞3 -
All this sugar and you are concerned about gaining weight? Why is nobody concerned about these poor kids teeth? !!!3
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To respond to the initial question, no I don't think passing out candy on Halloween adds to the obesity problem. It's one day out of the year. It's tradition. It's fun.
Personally, unless I knew you, I wouldn't let my child take soup from you. It would be really easy for an evil person to add chemicals to soup. 😞
How do you determine that the people you know are not evil?
If you want to be concerned about cross contamination from poor kitchen habits you might have a point. However, given the huge number of potlucks that happen each year that do not end in visits to the hospital even that is unlikely. No kid would ever get sick from anything in my kitchen unless it was a batch of contaminated (e.coli) vegetables that had not been recalled yet or an allergy. I am quite fastidious.1 -
iheartmyyorkie wrote: »Fiber bars? Squid? Please. I vote for giving out kids apple cider vinegar on Halloween. It'll rot their teeth like candy, but at least it will reboot their metabolisms. Um, right?
Given what my friends have told me about the effect of fast sugar on their children**, I think it's likely that the candy reboots their little metabolisms just fine, without resorting to cruel and unusual ACV.
** Relying on anecdotal evidence, as I have no offspring of my own.
It is not their metabolism it is their NEAT. Bouncing off walls and dancing to the same kids song they have played repeatedly for 4 hours burns a lot of calories.
Got me back for that fat/lean loss thing, eh?
:flowerforyou:
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I miss the popcorn balls one of my neighbors gave out. Not sure what recipe she used but I have never been able to duplicate them.
I Trick or Treated before the unfounded paranoia started about home made goodies. We were happy to get popcorn balls or bags of cookies because we had some great cooks in our town, The couple of houses that gave out full size candy bars were still the best.10 -
iheartmyyorkie wrote: »Fiber bars? Squid? Please. I vote for giving out kids apple cider vinegar on Halloween. It'll rot their teeth like candy, but at least it will reboot their metabolisms. Um, right?
Given what my friends have told me about the effect of fast sugar on their children**, I think it's likely that the candy reboots their little metabolisms just fine, without resorting to cruel and unusual ACV.
** Relying on anecdotal evidence, as I have no offspring of my own.
It is not their metabolism it is their NEAT. Bouncing off walls and dancing to the same kids song they have played repeatedly for 4 hours burns a lot of calories.
Got me back for that fat/lean loss thing, eh?
:flowerforyou:
( )
Would I do that?2 -
I miss the popcorn balls one of my neighbors gave out. Not sure what recipe she used but I have never been able to duplicate them.
I Trick or Treated before the unfounded paranoia started about home made goodies. We were happy to get popcorn balls or bags of cookies because we had some great cooks in our town, The couple of houses that gave out full size candy bars were still the best.
Me too. I also think if someone was going to poison kids it would have been in my day when we were always outside making noise and walking on neighbors' lawns and stuff. I lived here over a year before I realized one of my surrounding neighbors had kids and that was because I saw them walking to a car.0 -
I miss the popcorn balls one of my neighbors gave out. Not sure what recipe she used but I have never been able to duplicate them.
I Trick or Treated before the unfounded paranoia started about home made goodies. We were happy to get popcorn balls or bags of cookies because we had some great cooks in our town, The couple of houses that gave out full size candy bars were still the best.
I remember those! They were awesome! Had a neighbour who made caramel apples every year. That was the only piece of fruit I didn't mind getting.
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We don't get much trick or treaters.. so not issue for us in my neighborhood. 😁
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Even if you were to give out soup, I still question how you would package it as to make sure it won't spill in the kids' bags, especially if those children are running. It's also simply unrealistic to assume that a kid (and their parent) will want to sit and eat soup at someone's house. That said, for all I know you were planning on using those awesome durable plastic restaurant containers that are fairly watertight and then putting that in a plastic bag (becuase again with running children)
Never mind that you have no idea how active the children actually are. It isn't exactly unusual for parents to be shuttling their kids around to sports practices.1 -
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Even if you were to give out soup, I still question how you would package it as to make sure it won't spill in the kids' bags, especially if those children are running. It's also simply unrealistic to assume that a kid (and their parent) will want to sit and eat soup at someone's house. That said, for all I know you were planning on using those awesome durable plastic restaurant containers that are fairly watertight and then putting that in a plastic bag (becuase again with running children)
Never mind that you have no idea how active the children actually are. It isn't exactly unusual for parents to be shuttling their kids around to sports practices.
I do have those containers and the pint size version from another vendor. They are my preferred storage container.2
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