The Conversation – Kathleen Kevany
Food is used to mark special occasions in culturally distinct and personally valuable ways. People love their food and celebrations, but they don’t love the consequences of lower-quality diets. Halloween can be a time of fun and festivities as well as a frenzy around sweet treats that can be quite unsavoury to parents. A poor-quality diet is characterized by eating foods high in fat, salt or sugar often — foods such as processed meats, chips, white bread and soft drinks. As a result of these diets, obesity among children and youth has nearly tripled in the past 30 years in Canada.