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How Many Calories Were In That Trick Or Treat Bag?

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A public heath expert has estimated that, on average, a child in the US collects between 3,500 and 7,000 candy calories on Halloween night.

She says that to burn off 7000 calories, a one hundred pound child would have to walk for almost 44 hours or play full-court basketball for 14.5 hours.

With 31% of US children and teens ages 2-19 overweight or obese, it really makes you stop and think about having candy and treats so frequently and easily available everywhere you look.

One evening of collecting candy is not going to make a child – or an adult – overweight or obese.  It is the constant bombardment with candy, sweets, and other treats that can lead to weight (and health) challenges.

Now that we’re on the cusp of the major holiday season perhaps it’s time to give some thought to the quantity and constant availability of treats.

A treat is only a treat if it happens once in a while.  If it’s a common occurrence it far too frequently becomes an expectation or a habit.

A Spooky Jack-o’-Lantern Tale

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A Jack-o’-Lantern Legend

The Jack-O’-Lantern comes from a legend that goes back hundreds of years in Irish history. As the story goes, a miserable old drunk named Stingy Jack, who liked to play tricks on his family, friends, and even the Devil, tricked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree.   Stingy Jack then put crosses around the apple tree’s trunk so the Devil couldn’t get down — but told the Devil that if he promised not to take his soul when he died he would remove the crosses and let the Devil down.

When Jack died, Saint Peter, at the pearly gates of Heaven, told him that he couldn’t enter Heaven because he was mean, cruel, and had led a miserable and worthless life. Stingy Jack then went down to Hell but the Devil wouldn’t take him in.  Jack was scared but with nowhere to go he had to wander around in the darkness between Heaven and Hell.

When Stingy Jack asked the Devil how he could get out without a light to see, the Devil threw him an ember from the flames of Hell. One of Jack’s favorite foods, which he always had when he could steal one, was a turnip.  So he put the ember into a hollowed out turnip and from that day on, Stingy Jack, without a resting place, roamed the earth lighting his way with his “Jack-O’-Lantern.”

All Hallows Eve

Halloween, or the Hallow E’en in Ireland and Scotland, is short for All Hallows Eve, or the night before All Hallows. On All Hallows Eve the Irish made Jack-O’-Lanterns by hollowing out turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes, and beets and then putting lights in them to keep away both the evil spirits and Stingy Jack.  In the 1800′s when Irish immigrants came to America, they discovered that pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve, and the pumpkin became the Jack-o’-lantern.

If You Want To Eat Your Pumpkin . . .

Jumping from legend to fact:  pumpkins are Cucurbitaceae, a family of vegetables that includes cucumbers and melons. They are fat free and can be baked, steamed, or canned.

One cup of pumpkin has about 30 calories and is high in vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber, and has other nutrients like folate, manganese, and omega 3′s.  Pumpkin is filled with the anti-oxidant beta-carotene which gives it its rich orange hue. It is versatile and can be added to baked goods and blended with many foods.

Pumpkin seeds are delicious and are a good source of iron, copper, and zinc.  Although pumpkin is low in calories, pumpkin seeds are not.   They have 126 calories in an ounce (about 85 seeds) and 285 calories in a cup.

How Much Walking Do You Need To Do To Walk Off Halloween Candy?

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Here’s another way to think about Halloween candy — how much walking will it take to work off the calories in each piece?

These are some of the calculations from walking.com:

  • 1 Fun Size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc. comes to 80 calories. You will need to walk 0.8 miles, 1.29 kilometers, or 1600 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 2 Hershey’s Kisses comes to 50 calories. You will need to walk 0.5 miles, 0.80 kilometers, or 1000 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 2 Brachs caramels comes to 80 calories. You will need to walk 0.8 miles, 1.29 kilometers, or 1600 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 mini bite-size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.) comes to 55 calories. You will need to walk 0.55 miles, 0.88 kilometers, or 1100 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 Fun Size M&M packet – Plain or Peanut, comes to 90 calories. You will need to walk 0.9 miles, 1.45 kilometers, or 1800 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup comes to 33 calories. You will need to walk 0.33 miles, 0.53 kilometers, or 660 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 full size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.) comes to 275 calories. You will need to walk 2.75 miles, 4.43 kilometers, or 5500 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 King Size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.) comes to 500 calories. You will need to walk 5 miles, 8.06 kilometers, or 10000 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.
  • 1 small Tootsie Roll comes to 25 calories. You will need to walk 0.25 miles, 0.40 kilometers, or 500 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

If You Eat Them All . . .

2 Brachs caramels, 2 Hershey’s Kisses, 1 small Tootsie Roll, 1 Fun Size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.)1 mini bite-size candy bar (Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfingers, etc.), 1 Fun Size M&M packet – Plain or Peanut, 1 mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, 1 full size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.), 1 King Size chocolate candy bar (Snickers, Hershey, etc.), …that comes to 1188 calories. You will need to walk 11.88 miles, 19.16 kilometers, or 23760 steps, assuming you cover one mile in 2,000 steps.

 

How Much Halloween Candy Will You End Up Eating?

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Is it almost a foregone conclusion that there’s Halloween candy in your future?  It’s pretty hard to escape because it’s everywhere —  on desks, in restaurants, even in my veterinarian’s office in a nice purple bowl with a dog bone painted on the side.

Halloween and the week afterward accounts for about 5% of all candy consumed for the year. The most popular types, in order, are:  chocolate, chewy candies and hard candy.

What’s In Your Kid’s Trick or Treat Bag?

If you’ve ever swiped candy from your kid’s trick or treat bag, you’re certainly not alone. According to the National Confectioners Association, 90% of parents confess they occasionally dip into their kid’s stash. I know I sure did.

Parents invade big time — they eat one candy bar out of every two a child brings home.  Their favorite targets are snack-sized chocolate bars (70%), candy-coated chocolate pieces (40%), caramels (37%) and gum (26%).

In Case You Want To Pick The Least Caloric Candy . . .

Here are the calories in some popular Halloween candy – just in case you might want to minimize the caloric damage (no, that’s not a joke, candy has a big calorie and fat gram range):

  • Hershey’s Milk Chocolate: snack size .49-ounce bar; 67 calories; 4g fat
  • Snickers: Fun size; 80 calories; 4g fat
  • Tootsie Rolls: 6 midgee pieces; 140 calories; 3g fat
  • Skittles Original Bite Size Candies: Fun size bag; 60 calories; 0.7 g fat
  • M&Ms: Fun size bag; 73 calories; 3g fat
  • Butterfinger: Fun size; 85 calories; 3.5g fat
  • Tootsie Roll Pop
: 60 calories; 0g fat
  • Starburst Original Fruit Chews: 2 pieces; 40 calories: 40; 0.8g fat
  • Brach’s Candy Corn: 20 pieces; 150 calories; 0g fat
  • Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup:  Fun size; 80 calories, 4.5g fat
  • Peppermint Pattie:  Fun size; 47 calories; 1g fat
  • Kit Kat:  Fun size; 73 calories; 3.7g fat

 

Let A Baseball Be Your Guide

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It’s awfully hard to gauge how much food you’re putting on your plate – and even more difficult to figure out how much you’re popping into your mouth when you eat directly from a multi-serving bag of food.

Portion size is critical to managing your weight.  One helpful idea is to use commonplace objects as visual guides to “guesstimate” portion sizes.

One Cup Is About The Size Of A Baseball

The suggested serving size for many food items, particularly produce, is a cup. (The suggested portion size for many denser items, like pasta, rice, or ice cream is a half a cup, so two servings – which is what, at least, most of us eat, would equal a cup.)

 A Baseball, Not A Softball

A cup is about the size of a baseball – a baseball, not a softball.  So a cup of cooked greens, a cup of yogurt, a cup of beans, or a cup of cantaloupe should all look like the size of a baseball – but with obviously different calorie counts due to the food’s individual differences in food density and energy (calories).

Here are a few more of the CDC’s examples of one-cup servings:

  • 1 small apple
  • 1 medium grapefruit
  • 1 large orange
  • 1 medium pear
  • 8 large strawberries
  • 1 large bell pepper
  • 1 medium potato
  • 2 large stalks of celery
  • 12 baby carrots or 2 medium carrots
  • 1 large ear of corn