Too much candy could be harmful

BRISTOL, Va. -

Many of us spend hours on the perfect costume or decorating our front porches for a scary Halloween, but we learned the spookiest part about Halloween is the amount of sugar, fat and calories consumed by trick-or-treaters.

We learned that kids eat nearly three cups of sugar at Halloween time, which is like standing by and watching your child eat 200 packets of sugar.

"Like ten pieces a day, he would usually hoard it up and eat it later," said mother Missy Keesee.

Keesee says she made sure her son did not get a ton of candy for Halloween so he would not get sick. "We went to the mall where I could get small amounts of candy," said Keesee.

By visiting 15 houses, a child can gather up, on average, 60 pieces of fun-sized candy. Wee learned that amount of candy is equivalent to 4,800 calories, one and a half cups of fat and three cups of sugar.

Registered nurse Rachel Forbush tells us a few fun-sized candy bars are much healthier than the normal size. "The 3 Musketeers fun-sized are about 60 calories for oine with maybe a couple grams of fat, opposed to a large Hershey's candy bar," said Forbush. We found out the large Hershey's bar has nearly 200 calories and 15 grams of fat.

Forbush says all parents should only allow small amounts to be consumed at a time. "A little goes a long way, but not too much. Then you're going to end up with the stomach ache and not being able to go to sleep," said Forbush.

Forbush says there are other healthier options for your kids, like trail mix, string cheese, fruit snacks and peanut butter crackers.

However, Forbush says it is tough to keep kids from eating no candy at all. "It's Halloween and it's going to be hard for kids to get away from the candy," said Forbush.

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Too much candy could be harmful