Halloween can be one of the most fun times of year, and one of only a handful of “winter” holidays that we really have to look forward to! For some, trick or treating has become a firm tradition – whereas for others a scary movie at home might be preferable. Either way, it’s a day where it’s easy to consume a surprising amount of calories!
Trick or treating, or not!
Trick or treating, while one more of a US tradition has become much more common in the UK – many houses are already sporting all sorts of ghouls and ghosts in preparation for the big night, and while this can be a fun occasion one aspect – collecting all those sweets – might not be as good for you (or your kids) in the long run. In fact, in one study researchers at the University of Alabama found that kids collect roughly 7,000 calories when trick or treating on Halloween – that’s nearly 3 days worth of calorie intake and that’s just from the collected items!
At the same time, those of you without children or who simply prefer a quieter night in may well have a scary movie planned – but did you know just how many calories are in all of the spooky treats which are on offer at the moment? No question, lots of the themed cakes and sweets which are on offer for those of us too old for trick or treating look delicious – but most of them are actually just standard offerings with extra orange frosting added on top. Of course, none of this is an issue if you know what you’re eating and can plan for it as part of a healthy diet – but do you?!
Portion size
One of the major issues with Halloween is that most of the treats we consume are presented in “fun size” packets and come out of a large multipack bag – as a result, we’re pretty bad at judging just how much were consuming. While these small size versions are going to contain less calories than their full size versions, many of us take that as an opportunity to consume three of four “fun size” treats – which adds up to way more than the standard large version. As a result you’re very often consuming far more than you realise.
Would you be surprised if we told you a regular size Kit Kat contains 106 calories – but the “fun size” version has…. 70?! So two “fun size” Kit Kats is substantially more calories than one regular size example. Sure, if you have a handful it’s not going to be a huge difference in calories – but multiply this out over each item and you can see where things start to add up!
Calories in Halloween treats
With that being said, here’s some more calorie counts you might want to keep in mind…
| 1 TREAT SIZE (FUN SIZE) | CALORIES | FAT (Grams) | SUGAR (Grams) |
| Hershey’s Bar | 67 | 4 | 7.7 |
| Kit Kat | 70 | 3 | 7 |
| M&M’s (Plain) | 73 | 4 | 11.5 |
| Milky Way | 80 | 3 | 10 |
| PayDay | 90 | 5 | 8 |
| Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup | 110 | 6.5 | 10.5 |
| Snickers | 80 | 4 | 8.5 |
| Twix | 80 | 7 | 8.5 |
It’s not just the bars which add up either – small sweets like Jellybeans or Skittles also contain more calories than we might think, but due to their small size it’s far easier to overeat here. Watch out for…
| 1 TREAT SIZE (FUN SIZE) | CALORIES | FAT (Grams) | SUGAR (Grams) |
| Jelly Belly Jellybeans | 35 | 0 | 10 |
| Mike & Ike | 50 | 0 | 9 |
| Nerds | 50 | 0 | 2 |
| Skittles | 80 | .8 | 14.5 |
| SweeTarts | 10 | 0 | 2.4 |
Don’t get us wrong – we love all kinds of sweets and treats and sometimes a little bit of what you fancy really does do you good.. but try not to go overboard!
Happy Halloween everyone!
