Halloween is around the corner, and with Halloween comes spooky costumes, haunted hayrides, and horror films.
But for some, the most terrifying part of the holiday is the candy. Our culture has adopted a demonizing view of candy. It’s become self-disciplined to say “no” to the Halloween candy, and morally upright to be able to refuse the Snickers bars. We fear for kids to eat too much of their candy and struggle with what the right amounts are.
As a therapist working with eating disorders, here’s the reality: there is a place for candy in our life and in our kids’ lives. We don’t have to be afraid or monitor or limit ourselves. But we do have to take a few simple steps to make sure that we are engaging with it from a healthy and intuitive place.
For us as individuals, we need to work on thinking about candy as any other food. We can enjoy it and fuel our body with it — yes, I said candy can fuel our bodies! What do you think the basic form of energy is — a carbohydrate. Candy has carbohydrates in it.
And the more we engage with candy from a non-judgmental, non-critical standpoint, the more we can enjoy it an intuitive way. If we approach our Halloween candy with fear, worry and anxiety, we are not going to be as intuitive or mindful with it. The skills of mindfulness, being aware and present to the current moment, will help us enjoy the candy, savoring the sweetness, without being sucked into the fear or fixation on it.
Candy should be just that: candy. Let’s take away the labels of good or bad, right or wrong, moral or naughty. Eat some candy. Enjoy the flavors. Feel satisfied.
Let’s talk about this in both a physical as well as emotional framework. From a physical standpoint, legalizing candy is so important. In the eating disorder world, there’s something we refer to as the “restrict/binge cycle” — a built in mechanism that our mind has in order to keep our body safe. The more we restrict food, the more our mind signals to our body that it needs food, setting up a system whereby our fixation on the food increases and we risk binging behaviors. This is our mind’s way of protecting our bodies — it’s a survival mechanism.
Now, think about it from an emotional angle. Why is taking the label of good and bad away from candy so important? The issue becomes so much more convoluted when we involve judgments and negativity onto it. It’s then that we lose sight of candy being candy. The more emotional involvement we make with candy, the more we obsess and berate ourselves over it, the more we then crave it. The hyper-fixation makes the candy the focus, not the experience or the enjoyment.
Another important note — if you have children, they are taking in what you say as well as what you do regarding candy. So, if you in your language demonizes candy or heavily restricts it, they are internalizing that eating candy makes them bad and believe that they themselves must monitor their behavior around it.
In general, the more we apply a moral belief system to candy, the more we perpetuate a cycle of cravings around it. Give yourself permission to enjoy some pieces of Halloween candy. Give those you love the same permission. I promise, the more we authorize enjoyment, the less power and obsession the candy has over us.
Happy Halloween!
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