Good Question: How Much Halloween Candy Should Kids Eat?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — We know two bad things about candy for sure: it's basically sugar, which causes tooth decay, and its empty calories can lead to obesity.

But really, how bad is it for kids to chow down on their bounty of Halloween candy?

Deb Sheats is the director of the dietetic program at St. Catherine's University.

"It's certainly not sitting down and eating all of that at once, but portioning it out," Sheats said.

According to the National Confectioners Association, 41 percent of parents say they limit the candy to "a couple of pieces a day" until it runs out. Twenty-four percent keep complete control, and 13 percent allow a certain number of pieces and take the rest away.

For some perspective, two fun-size Milky Way candy bars have 21 grams of sugar. One Pop Tart has 17 grams, one serving of Frosted Flakes is 10 grams and one can of coke is 39 grams.

"We can translate that into things like sugar cubes as an example. Sugar cubes would be about five grams of sugar roughly," Sheats said.

So there are four sugar cubes in just two fun-size Milky Ways.

On average, kids eat between 50 and 100 grams of sugar a day. They should be eating between 45 and 60.

"There's naturally occurring sugars and then there's added sugars," she said. "My blueberry yogurt has more sugar than two Milky Ways, but again you're getting more vitamins and minerals in that product, you're getting protein. You can't just look at sugar, you have to look at the whole package."

And if you're house is anything like my mine, the parents will eat half of it, which is one way to ration.

Sheats says there's no hard evidence sugar makes kids hyper. It can be chalked up perhaps to caffeine or just plain excitement.