While your children may be excited about the entire Halloween tradition from picking out a costume, to organizing parties, many parents forget about the feeding frenzy of sugar overload that follows days after the holiday hoopla.
According to Allan Melnick DDS, a childrens dentistry spokesman and advocate, only 1/2 of children brush their teeth twice a day. While Dr. Melnick considers this a public health failure, trick-or-treating only adds to the increasing rise of children’s tooth decay, an increase which hasn’t been seen in decades.
In an attempt to get parents and children more aware of “zombie mouth” this Halloween season, the ADA has created a fun, interactive quiz on their website which introduces the concept to children and how to prevent it from ruining what should be a fun and healthy activity. The ADA reminds us that sugar or candy in moderation is fine, but Halloween can sometimes bring out the glutton in both children and adults. Children can literally bring home pounds and pounds of candy, and it’s up to parents to provide boundaries and limits to its consumption. Some of the things parents can do include:
- If, at all possible, limit or avoid the chewy, sticky candies, that tend to take longer to clear the mouth.
- Limit the overall consumption of Halloween candy. Halloween candy has a tendency to hang around for months after. Parents can do their part by distributing the candy in small quantities and preventing children from snacking on candy in between meals.
- Reducing sugar consumption throughout the year can keep children from building an increased tolerance to large quantities of sugar.
- Monitor and manage the amount of sugar your children eat. It’s not the quantity of sugar that children consume that poses the most danger, but the increased frequency of sugar consumption throughout the day that puts children at a higher risk.
- It’s recommended to give children a “treat” along with their normal meal, since good dental health begins with brushing after a meal.
- Due to the increased use of sugar in many foods, from breakfast cereal to juice to salad dressings, it’s up to parents as consumers to read labels, and provide balanced and nutritional meals that offset sugar consumption.
Other tips from dentists include drinking water after consuming surgery treats to balance the PH levels found in the mouth, and chewing sugarless gum which helps with saliva production to wash away accumulated sugars.
With a little planning and designated boundaries, you and your children can avoid zombie mouth this Halloween.
Tip of the Day: If you are looking for a new dentist, I recommend you look prospects over thoroughly on the internet. Your friends and neighbors really can’t tell the ability and skill of their own dentist. He may be a very nice guy with a lovely office and be a poor dentist technically.
Best regards,
Allan Melnick DDS
