Trick or Treat – Healthy Halloween Ideas

Halloween comes around every year, and with it countless kids eat tons of sugary candies after asking people, “Trick or Treat?” While chocolate candy bars taste great, what are some healthy Halloween ideas to help kids (and adults) make some more positive choices this holiday season?

Here’s an interesting idea: use natural foods to make Halloween snacks. For instance, you can cut oranges to look like pumpkins (with a thin pretzel stick for a stalk), add raisins as “eyes” to cut-in-half bananas as ghosts, and, best of all, use grapes as “eyeballs,” since they’re squishy. Involve kids in the creation of these concoctions– see pics here: http://communitytable.parade.com/440739/jillmills/22-of-the-best-healthy-halloween-snack-ideas-for-kids/#gallery_440739-1

Next, take the focus off of food and instead use games that require some physical movement for Halloween parties. For example, what about pumpkin bowling? Have a person throw/roll a pumpkin to knock down plastic bowling pins… or try to throw gourds through a hole in a box to see who can get the most in! Another fun idea is to take a witch’s hat and try to toss it onto a hook or peg– that can keep kids (and adults) entertained for quite a while. If your local community has a giant corn maze set up, that can be a fun excursion: who will get out of the maze first and who will have to be rescued since they’re lost?

Food and games are fun, but also consider toys this Halloween season. Kids love toys and most adults, given the chance, will smile if and when they get to play with a toy since Halloween allows them to “be a kid again.” Use toys as substitutes for sugary snacks and/or rewards for game winners. Examples of toys that can put smiles on people’s faces include fake fangs, bouncy balls, glow sticks, dolls, toy trucks, and teddy bears.

Finally, to have a healthy Halloween, stick with people and places you know well. In the old days, people were more trusting and neighbors didn’t even lock their doors. Today, though, that’s not the case. Oftentimes malls offer kids a safe place to collect goodies store-by-store or churches offer a “harvest fest” that takes away the scary parts of Halloween.

Halloween can be as mild or as scary as a person wants it to be. It can also be a time of overindulging in sugar which makes people fat and lethargic. Just like a chiropractor makes adjustments so a person feels better, you, too, can make adjustments this year to have a healthier Halloween.