The Scariest Thing During Halloween is Diet Culture

By Megan Samuels, MSW, LMSW, Outreach Coordinator

Halloween is exciting for kiddos (and adults) for many reasons, including the candy.  I look forward to the Halloween themed foods, such as the donuts with sprinkles in the shapes of orange and black spiders on them.  I also love the decorations and how spirited and festive people get around Halloween.  

Halloween and the month of October seems to be filled with things that are “scary” or “spooky,” such as ghosts, goblins, witches, etc.  What is even scarier than that you might wonder… is diet culture.  

Let’s think about this.  Diet culture tricks people into believing that dieting is the only way to be happy or to succeed.  In reality, diet culture takes away from holidays and celebrations, including Halloween.  Diet culture has truly been ruining holidays since the existence of humans.  

This blog will include some ways to spot diet culture during Halloween and some tips on how to ditch diet culture and reclaim Halloween as a festive and exciting holiday!

Here are some ways that diet culture can infiltrate Halloween:

1. Limiting the amount of candy we eat on Halloween.

• We don’t need to tell kids (or anyone) how much candy that they are allowed to eat on Halloween.  Research has shown that limiting the amount of food that someone can have just increases the cravings for that food (Harrison, 2019).  Allowing people to use their hunger and fullness cues as a guide for how much candy they want to eat promotes intuitive eating behaviors, embodiment, and trust in one’s body.

2. Losing weight before Halloween to look a certain way in Halloween costume.

• Diet culture often teaches us that we must look a certain way in order to wear costumes.  If you are feeling internal or external pressure to lose weight for a costume, consider exploring the origins of those pressures and what the short and long term consequences of acting on potentially losing weight.

3. People passing out food that is deemed “more healthy” than candy on Halloween.

• If we look at the macronutrients of most candy, it would fall under the “fats” category and the “starch” category.  Fat nutrients help to insulate our internal organs and help to give us long term energy.  Starch nutrients help give the body and brain quick energy.  

Here are some ways that we can reclaim Halloween and ditch diet culture:

1. Distract ourselves from diet culture.

• If we are with family members who perpetuate diet culture, distraction can be a good way to pass the time and not further activate ourselves.  Distraction on Halloween can be fun!  Some examples can include watching Halloween movies, dressing a pet in a Halloween costume (which is my personal favorite option), or listening to Halloween music.  

2. Educate ourselves and others.

• Dive into a book or listen to a podcast that discusses the dangers of diet culture.  Take some time to explore how diet culture may be impacting your life.  Also, people may perpetuate diet culture because they don’t have the correct education.  If it feels okay to share some of this information with friends and family, they may have the education and awareness to change their perspective on dieting and health (also keeping in mind though that not everyone is ready to hear an anti-diet perspective on health and wellness).

3. Practicing an intuitive relationship with food.

• One cool thing that you can do on Halloween is to practice having a healthy relationship with food.  AND this can be modeled to other people in your life.  Showing yourself and others that you have the trust within yourself to eat an amount of candy that feels right for you (without the shame of diet culture).  This can also look like honoring your cravings and not labeling foods as “good” or “bad."  Research shows that people who practice intuitive eating have better health outcomes, including lower cardiovascular risk, less body image dissatisfaction, and a reduced risk to develop an eating disorder (Harrison, 2019).

References:
Harrison C. (2019). Anti-diet: reclaim your time, money, well-being, and happiness through intuitive eating (First). Little Brown Spark.

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