The Fat Diaries: My Halloween Sugar Binge
There’s something sinister and magical about Halloween and part of it is that annual werewolf-like transformation of healthy-eaters into candy overeaters.
I love Halloween. I’ve delighted for years in dressing up in costumes and walking in the brisk evening with my best friends. I’ve been a cat, a genie, a jockey (with a cardboard horse), and Harry Potter over the years. This year, I’m going as a sparkly vampire. I’m being ironic so it’s not lame... Okay, fine. Don’t believe me.
Granted, I’m not one of those adults who go all out. I have a friend, for example, who starts planning her Halloween displays in July, crafting goblins and zombie limbs by hand. I’ll admit there was a time where I used to get all those Halloween Martha Stewart magazines and drool at the expertly decorated interiors. I’d spend hours making lists of supplies that I never bought, imagining the spreads at parties I never threw. I simply didn’t have enough time and money to transform an apartment into a den of terror. I’ve thrown one Halloween party in my life, and (according to the guests) the scariest thing there were the tofu-dogs. Not having any kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood was the final nail in the coffin. They all went to the local mall, which was safer.
I take my kids to my mother’s neighborhood for trick-or-treating. It’s still one of the friendliest blocks I’ve ever been to, and it’s also one of the safest. My kids are good trick-or-treaters. They say “trick-or-treat” when they’re supposed to, they say thank you (when prompted) and they have a good time. The Boy is a little timid, but the free chocolate makes up for his trepidation.
My daughter is a mercenary trick-or-treater. Even the really scary houses with fog machines and a sound-effects playlist were no match for her desire for an adult to cry “Oh! What a pretty princess costume!” Then she’d smile, all dimples, and say “trick-or-treat,” get her candy and prance off to the next house. The funniest thing is my daughter HATES candy. That’s right. Little Girl thinks the greatest foods in the world are grapes, buttered toast, and bacon. She thinks most candy is pretty gross, except for lollipops, which she’ll just hold until they get fuzzy. That meant that all she ate that night were pretzels, and cheese-crackers.
All that extra candy was for my husband Joe and I to eat ourselves. Score, right? Well… I made an interesting discovery last year, as we dipped into Little Girl’s haul. I can’t eat sugar like I used to. I remember eating an entire tray of chocolate marshmallow cookies for lunch in middle-school and washing it down with a soda. I wouldn’t even feel slightly twitchy. Last year, after three fun-sized chocolates, a Twizzler and a tiny box of Nerds, I suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. I had to actually lie down, until the sugar high went away! Since I was no longer a hypermetabolic sugar-fiend, my pancreas simply couldn’t handle the sugar overload!
My son had no such impulse to stop eating candy, so being a responsible parent, I limited him to 5 goodies (steering him towards a package of pretzels and saying it counted as 2). The rest was packed in a freezer-bag and shoved into the deepest, darkest recesses of the freezer. This was a technique my mother employed, and for the most part, it worked pretty well. Out of sight was out of mind, and there would still be candy in that bag until well around Easter (when it was so frost-bitten and grody even my sugar-craving depravity wouldn’t touch it). It worked last year too. The candy stayed in the freezer until we moved in February, when it was trashed with little ceremony.
Now there are plenty of you who don’t like the idea of candy at all, and would much rather pass out toothbrushes and money. I say, go for it. It’s less candy I have to confiscate from the kids, but also be aware that there are people who won’t look kindly on it. You may get TP’d and egged. I remember our house being in constant fear of property defacement. “We can’t give out MOUNDS! We’re gonna get egged!” “RAISINS? Are you NUTS? They’re gonna break all our jack-o-lanterns!” So my house was the ruthless sugar merchants ruining the youth of America with our fun-sized chocolate-covered obesity-bars.
Actually, I think the kids are in safe hands. They have us. We have enough sense not to let our kids go too nuts. We set limits, instate curfews, and unless we have one of those kids who takes a minute inventory of their haul (yes, I was that kid), our kids won’t miss the candy we spirit away when they’re asleep. Yeah, it’s mean, but it’s our job. We know the dangers of raising sugar-addicted kids today. We know if they get addicted to sugar, their chances for morbid-obesity increases. As I say, the kids are not the ones in danger…it’s us, the grown-ups. We’re the ones who are facing that innocuous bowl full of orange and black wrappers left out for patrons. It’s at the bank, the grocery store, the realtors, the principle’s office, the post office, everywhere!
Finally, anyone who thinks the kids get too much sugar on Halloween has never been to an adult costume party. I’ve seen responsible adults hovering over the snack table in clusters, double-fisting Twix bars. I’m not kidding. Put a group of normal, healthy adults with no suicidal tendencies and average eating habits, in a room full of candy and something in them snaps. Suddenly people like you and me, who avoid sugar in their coffee and ask for their dressing on the side, have turned into greedy nine-year-old sugar-monsters. And the worst part? Our moms didn’t come with us to the party. There’s no voice to tell us to take it easy, to eat only a few chocolates and for God’s sake to talk with our mouth closed.
There’s something sinister and magical about Halloween, and part of that, is the annual werewolf-like transformation of healthy-eaters into binge-eaters. And with it comes the ruthless sugar dips, the upset stomachs, and the dragging lethargy the next day. Oh, and it won’t end with the coming of November 1st. For most parents I asked, do you know what the most favored way of getting Halloween candy out of the house is? TAKING IT TO WORK. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Happy Halloween, everyone (muahahahahahahahahaha).
