This entry was inspired by my trip to Giant supermarket yesterday. Upon walking into the store, you could not help but notice all of the Halloween-featured displays. And those beautifully-adorned displays were not offering up protein and vegetable choices. Rather, there were countless number of candies that we all remember well growing up: M&Ms, Three Musketeers, Reeses Pieces, Hershey chocolates, and the list goes on and on and on. There were plenty of packages containing a mix of all of these and the sizes varied from a 50 count to a 300 piece count.
Clearly, the pricing is such that if you know you have LOTS of children ringing your doorbell on Halloween night, it makes sense to buy the very large packages whereas if you live in one of those 5 acre house communities you may not have that doorbell ring once.
The time period between Halloween and The Christmas/New Years Holidays is probably the most challenging period of the year for controlling weight. The very first of these challenges is the Halloween candy thing. We all tend to buy much more candy than we actually give out. The initial reason is not because we want to hoard these candies for ourselves, but rather, we would never want to “run out” of treats to give the children if we are inundated by more visits than we expected.
The ”left-over” Halloween candy provides a dilemma of sorts. Our basic nature does not allow us to want to throw the “extra” candy out so we have two choices: Leave them in our pantries OR bring them into work and give them to others. If we leave them in our pantries there is a good chance that we will, over time, wind up eating all of them ourselves. If we bring this into work, there is a great chance that our overweight/obese co-workers will start chowing down on them.
So, to the point: Based on previous experiences, only buy the amount of candy needed to satisfy the visitors you get OR think of some non-candy “treat” to provide to the children. With childhood obesity being one of the most serious health problems In America, quite frankly, the children really do not need these sugar-based treats. However, tradition being what it is, we will all wind up giving out candy. Try to NOT “overbuy” the candy so as NOT to have any significant amount of “leftovers”.
AND…if you would like to see your favorite medical practice people dressed up in costumes, come in for a FREE body scan on Monday, October 31 to our office and check us out. Last year I went as a tuxedo wearing, gun toting master spy, James Bond, 077. No, that is not a typo…I am closer to 77 years old than 7, so I could not in good conscious be 007.