Growing Lean’s nutrition blog

Tomorrow kids all over town will be celebrating Halloween. We don’t normally associate Halloween with healthy habits, but now is a good time to start!
Trick-or-treating truly has the potential to have health benefits! Think about it–the only way to collect treats is to walk around. This year, instead of seeing how much candy you and your child can collect, why not see how far you can go. Think about the farthest house you want to visit, walk there to start (just enjoy looking at others in their costumes on the way), and trick-or-treat your way back. That way, you know that you have already walked a certain distance, and any candy collecting occurs on your way back home. Once you are getting tired, you can just keep walking without stopping in order to get home faster.
Once home, don’t be afraid to transfer a lot of the candy to the trash (without your child seeing this) or freezer. It is okay to allow your child to have some candy, but, of course, keep it limited. You can provide some damage control by putting only one mini-chocolate bar in the lunch bag or allowing a choice of one item from the Halloween stash for an afternoon snack.
As fun follow-up, let your kids make faces out of other food in honor of the Jack-o-lanterns–stick raisins into apples to make facial features; make faces on a tray using vegetable slices and fruit slices; take the center out of a fruit or vegetable, fill with yogurt, and stick in beans or baby carrots as hair/dippers; and whatever else comes to mind.
I hope that you all have a fun, safe, and healthy Halloween!
Beckie Bergman