Most adults I know regularly chow down on Skittles, Twizzlers, Chompo Bars, etc…
I don’t recall when I was a kid grown ups eating as much candy as I see today.
Of course, my memory and observations may be skewed by what my environment as a child was.
I’m wondering if there is any data available pertaining to adult consumption of candy today as compared to decades past.
I remember that when I was a kid in the fifties adults would occasionally have candy, but never “kids candy”. It would be stuff like Whitman’s Samplers, Russell Stover, maybe that gawdawful ribbon candy people’s grandmothers used to have. Special occasions maybe some of that Italian nougat candy Ferrari made.
Probably.
This. My grandmother and her contemporaries always had a candy dish or bowl in the living room, with hard candy like peppermints or butterscotch. They also usually kept some sort of fancy chocolate on hand for themselves. Comparatively, my aunts/uncles who are grandparents now (60s and 70s) rarely have sweets around - they snack more on potato chips, pretzels and the like.
My memory from the 50s is that adults had candy only on certain occasions. Perhaps a Whitman’s Sampler on Valentines Day, or some hard candy or Jordan Almonds when my mother’s Mahjong ladies were over. I don’t think they even ate candy at the movies. Perhaps popcorn, but the candy was for kids.
My grandparents always had After Eight or Andes Mints that were supposed to be just for the grown ups. They always had candy bowl full of hard candy. Often there was M&Ms for us kids.
My parents rarely had candy in the house for kids or adults. In our house, we often have quality chocolate bars, but none of us eats much else for candy.
Makes me think, people used to have more traditional dinners with a dessert, thus less need for store bought candy.
Do adults normally sit around eating candy now? 
The mini bars are great for adults. I keep Butterfinger and Baby Ruth mini bars. Two bites and it satisfies my craving without pigging out on a whole bar. I only eat one a day.
Kids eat a lot more candy. My candy jar goes way down when friends with kids visit.
I am not familiar with the behavior either–I guess it depends on your local circle of contacts. I thought regular adult candy consumption was confined to LAPD Deputy Chiefs. Maybe pkbites is part of law enforcement. 
That I am.
But I see it everywhere. Adults buying/eating Skittles, Chompo Bars, Twizzlers, etc. at the gas station, from the vending machine on college campus, from the gift shop at the hospital.
When I was a kid I don’t recall seeing adults eat candy like I see it now. My old man never would have packed a candy bar in his lunch before going to work.
Most I know feed their sweet tooth with pastries, cookies, and cakes - usually while downing coffee.
As an homage to my grandmother, I’ve got a jar of butterscotch candies in a bookshelf, the individually wrapped ones. My living room is done in red and gold, and the jar full of candies with a red ribbon around the neck fits in. I’ve also learned that butterscotch is one of those oxymoron foods that people complain about you having, then complain when you’re out. I often hear “Butterscotch - how old are you?” soon followed by “You’re out of candy!” :rolleyes:
mmm, butterscotch. My 2nd favorite hard candy. Not very many calories for one piece. Soft peppermint is my #1 favorite.
It’s all about moderation. One piece now and then is fine.
I eat far more than my parents did. And I eat more on Halloween now than I did then, albeit less variously. And I dress up less. I do remember there was always an M&M’s bowl at my grandparents’ when we visited, but I don’t know how often it needed refilling in general.
Referring to pkbites’s post above, I recall that Snickers ad with the hardhat saying how he liked a Snickers bar in his lunch pail. That was maybe one of the few non-jocular ads where grownups sing the praises of candy bars.
That’s another difference in consumption. Though my grandparents kept a candy bowl, I rarely saw then have any. My grandmother sometimes, my grandfather never. Nowadays, people start on it and keep going - after a gathering I’m removing a ton of gold cellophane from the butterscotches.
At work we had a receptionist who kept a candy jar on her desk and she complained that once word go out people were welcome to have some, she was refilling it almost daily, with people making multiple trips.
Between 1950 and 2000 sweetener intake (sugars, corn syrup) went up by roughly 50% (pdf, table 2-6) mainly in the form of high fructose corn syrup.
Most of that increased sweetener intake is not in sweets per se, but in beverages (both juices and -ades, and sodas) and hidden as a food additive in other products such as spaghetti sauce, breads, yogurts, and for that matter most processed foods. (Same source.) Breaking that out into detail by age group can be seen here. For all ages sweets are about 16% of current added sugars intake and beverages (juices, -ades, and sodas all together) 43%. 23% are inside the “grains” group and about 9% in the milk/milk product group. Adolescents eat the most added sweeteners averaging about 20% of caloric intake. It then decreased across adulthood to a low of about 12% for 65 and over.
So no huge candy increase even though added sweeteners yes.
Growing up we did usually eat a home cooked dinner at the dinner table as a group. Such dinners never included dessert, and most certainly not a prepared dessert.
I don’t really recall my parents eating candy, but my mom did have a doughnut every morning on her way to work and there were always store bought cookies (generic Oreo/Hydrox types) and other junk food in the pantry for snacking.
I do eat candy as an adult, but mostly because my favorite sweet tooth feeder is peanut butter and that most conveniently comes in candy bar form. By I still don’t eat that at nearly the rate I planned to when I was a kid and imagined the freedom of being a grown up and eating whatever the hell I want.
My grandparents always had two candy bowls in their living room. One was always full of peanut M&Ms and one was always full of mixed nuts. But I have no idea how much they ate of either.
I eat a lot of candy, much more than I did when I was a teenager or in my twenties, and I eat a boatload more than my parents did. My grandparents had a bowl of hard candy in their homes, but we didn’t at my house. And I’m afraid the bite size candies don’t slow me down at all.
I don’t remember seeing my parents or aunts and uncles eating candy at all.