Candy and Other Food Treats or Tricks

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Traditionally in the United States, children go out trick-or-treating in costumes to get candy and other treats. With our modern increasing concern about what we eat, candy, with all its potentially addictive sugar and additives, should not be viewed as a treat, perhaps more as an unintentional trick.

More generally, however, this year we have more debates about what healthy food is. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, head of Health and Human Services, has conveyed a concern about food additives. That concern, no matter the controversy about his other recommendations, sounds like a treat.

Dementia is also an increasing health concern. Here, consuming lots of saturated fats is one of the apparent risk factors. Yet, RFK Jr has cancelled a recent meeting of the US Preventive Services Task Force which assesses cholesterol management. Sounds more like a trick, doesn’t it?

Like the potential treats or tricks coming out of Health and Human Services, whose advice to trust about nutrition is a challenge. I personally go toward Sanjay Gupta, MD, and his CNN Health columns, “The Results Are In.” He is very well-trained and a continuing active physician. In his October 24 column, he warns that food claimed to be “natural” is not necessarily good for you. So-called “natural” labeled foods can be processed ones. Although diets like keto, paleo and carnivore, which exclude grains, may reduce inflammation, they may increase high cholesterol and heart disease. Finding diets to help address mental illness has been an ongoing quest, unfulfilled so far. Again, more tricks than treats?

As Gupta says, the best treats in food still seem to be a well-balanced diet based on moderate amounts of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein. Candy can still be a treat, but only if eaten very sparingly and not often.

However, the worse trick of all is that poorer people and people in war zones might not even have such choices. There, humanitarian help is required, but there is a current danger of children starving in the war zone of Gaza and in the government shutdown of our own Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Program in the presence of plenty. As we went to press, food aid for more than 40 million Americans is at risk. In the Maslow hierarchy of psychological needs, adequate food is on the bottom as one of the basic physiological needs.

In our field’s recent focus on lifestyle psychiatry, assessing and following a patient’s diet should become more routine and normalized as an item on any intake evaluation. That would be a treat!

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.