Kids and Halloween Candy: A blog with Kathleen Meehan, MS, RD

Hey Kathleen! Can you tell readers a little about yourself?

As a dietitian, I firmly believe that all bodies are worthy of adequate nutrition and pleasurable, satisfying food. It's my goal to help people improve their relationship with food by simplifying nutrition and highlighting the importance of nuance. We work together to explore self-compassion, curiosity around individual experience, and bodily autonomy.

Outside the office, I'm mostly in mom mode. I enjoy getting outside, hanging with my friends and family, reading a good book or watching a show, and having a leisurely meal (a true rarity these days!).

Yes! I absolutely love the ways you show up for your clients. And the rarity of a leisurely meal from being in mom mode made me chuckle, because same.

Halloween is right around the corner, and I know a lot of parents are starting to stress over how much candy to give their kids. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

As an eating disorder dietitian and parent, I believe there are ways to help assure our children have a healthy relationship with all foods, including candy. While most of the limitations parents place on candy are meant to be supportive, we know things get tricky when candy (or any type of food) is restricted. Overly restricting candy leads to an intense preoccupation or fixation, which ironically then makes parents feel like their children need restriction. Instead, we might aim to help our children learn how to self regulate - we do this by offering candy consistently and without any negative commentary, and by teaching children to listen to their bodies.

There's nuance here for each family to explore, and this doesn't have to mean unlimited access to candy, whenever, wherever (although on halloween you might try that!). When children trust that sweets won't be restricted, they don't experience the 'forbidden fruit' effect. They may still find the food pleasurable, understandably!, but there is less tension around eating in general.

I love how you’re saying there’s nuance-every kid and every family is different. I hear you saying that structure is helpful while keeping talk neutral and access consistent. And I can’t agree more. I’ve worked with countless people over the years where sweets have been restricted in the home. The parents’ intentions were for supporting their kids but unfortunately it made a healthy relationship with that food more difficult.

I’m also hearing it’s totally okay for parents to give their kids more flexibility on Halloween and let the kids have so much more access. What would you say to the parents who might be reading this and getting nervous at that idea or saying “but Kathleen!”

It makes a lot of sense that parents would feel some resistance to the idea of offering 'free reign' with candy. I also think it can require lots of reflection to unpack our concerns and worries when it comes to food and our children, and it makes sense to not be able to do so between now and Halloween! Maybe it's worth reflecting on what you notice about how you feel when you see your child eating candy - noticing the worries and fears that may be coming up. Where do those beliefs come from? This might give us some insight on what we can do to help improve your relationship with food moving forward - and in doing so, help your kids.

I love this. Our family practices giving full reign on Halloween. To be quite honest, even with being an ED therpaist and doing a ton of my own work around food and body over the years, it was still a bit challenging for me at first.

If parents are reading this and feel like starting this Halloween feels like too big of a shift, what do you recommend to help them support a neutral food environment at home?

Without the pressure of the Halloween holiday, parents who feel worried about this approach might start including candy more frequently, treating it like just another food. And set expectations - if a food is new, novel and exciting, it's likely that our children may want to eat lots of it. That is normal! And as the yummy food becomes less novel, our kids may still want to eat it regularly and with frequency (because it tastes good!), but they'll likely be able to do so with more neutrality.

This conversation requires lots of nuance, and it's worth considering individual family dynamics as well as neurodiversity amongst kids - sometimes the internal connection to appetite is less accessible to neurodivergent kids. That said, regardless, all kids deserve a peaceful relationship with food and freedom from weight bias, which means finding ways to include yummy candy.

Thank you so much for sharing this important information. How can people contact you?

The best way someone can reach me is at kathleenmeehanrd.com. They can also find me on Instagram at @therdnutritionist.