Dr's Sears and a Healthier Halloween

I received my newsletter via email the other day, and besides the usual Halloween safety tips, there were a few "health" tips that I liked as well.

How to Minimize Your Child's Candy Intake During The Halloween Season:

Out of sight, out of mind - Keep your child's candy on a top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. This way, your child must ask for it and you can keep better track of how much they eat. But even better is that they will probably forget about it. Kids tend to forget about their easter and halloween candy after a few weeks. We eventually eat some ourselves and throw the rest away after a few months.

Buy it back - Buy your child's candy back from them, then take a family trip to the toy store and let them pick out a few toys. This is a nice treat, since it's another long two months until Christmas.

Weed out the real junk - Allow your child to keep chocolate candies, but eliminate the artificially colored stuff. This will keep most of the chemicals to a minimum.

One junk a day rule - In our house we have a "one junk a day rule" that we have taught our kids from an early age. This doesn't mean they actually eat one every day, it simply means that when they DO eat a candy, they can only have one.


L.E.A.N. Corner: Healthy Options for Halloween Treats

Halloween is a once a year time for kids to have fun and enjoy getting dressed up, scaring each other and gathering treats are a part of the fun. Remember that most treats handed out are Red Light Foods and can lead to stomachaches and bad behaviour. Most Kids won't eat all their candy so a majority ofi t gets thrown away once forgotten about.Here are some non red light treat ideas to get you started thinking:

Small boxes of cereal
Cheese and cracker packages
Sugar-free gum
100% Juice box packages
Small packages of nuts or raisins
A package of instant cocoa mix
Non-food treats such as: Stickers, toys, crayons, pencils, colored chalk, erasers, baseball cards, rubber spiders, temporary tattoos, false teeth, little bottles of bubbles and small games, like tiny decks of cards (party-supply stores can be great sources for these)


You can go and visit Dr Sears L.E.A.N Start ( Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitude and Nutrition) at

http://www.drsearslean.com/

I have been reading the site, and there are some really interesting things on it, lots of good reading. Of course there is more in the books, but you can get a feel for what he is trying to convey.

I think the set is now on my Christmas want list...I am really interested in what he has to say about shaping kids tastes...and I am always interested in the latest studies and research on this.and the Family Fun book looks great!