If, like me, you find the 22 teaspoon of added sugar per day American consumption rate scary, then it might be time to brace for tonight’s toxic trick-or-treating event.
Or not.
A recent Health & Wellness feature in the Wall Street Journal titled “Sugar Math for Halloween” offers some sound advice from a pediatric dentist: “One day in the life of a child is not going to ruin them.”
It’s the candy-hoarders, traders and daily-dosers who consume a bucket load of candy over the next three weeks that he’s concerned about.
I remember those days well. My mother might buy a bag of candy once every other month to share among all in the family. Then came my favorite day of the year: my only opportunity as a sugar-deprived child to make up for her stinginess.
Every Halloween I would routinely fill a pillowcase full of candy, then feast for a month, with no parental interference.
I did things differently when my two boys showed the same interest in the time-honored tradition of trick-or-treating. I let them eat all they wanted on Halloween night. The next day the candy disappeared.
That made sense to me. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t know what we do today, that children’s taste buds, while the same number as adults, are clustered closer together on their smaller tongues. Flavors are more intense, the younger you are, according to Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab. Kids prefer sweet over bitter because taste is magnified.
The WSJ feature offered some good tricks for wrestling away the goodies and limiting sugar.
Boys ages 14 to 18 consume about 34 teaspoons, roughly 550 calories, mostly from sodas. I know in my neighborhood we get costumed trick-or-treaters of all ages. Dietary guidelines say that discretionary calories should make up no more than 15 percent of your diet. The Centers for Disease Control has teens exceeding this amount just in sugar alone, never mind fats, the other half of the scary duo.
I don’t have any answers when it comes to avoiding trick-or-treating altogether. Suggesting costume parties limited to apple-bobbing doesn’t cut it and won’t replace the tradition, no matter how much science points out that sugar has no nutritional benefit.
Read the WSJ article from Oct. 29. It will put to rest the “sugar makes him bounce off the wall” theories and others that are anecdotal, but not necessarily research-based.
