A report is out that shows that kids are getting more cavities than we did in the late 80s and 90s. I find that hard to believe based on the number of cavities I had as a kid but I guess I would fit more into the late 70s early 80s crowd anyway.
28 percent of kids between 2 and 5 have cavities compared to 24 percent in the 80s/90s.
There appear to be two big reasons for the increase, less fluoride and less parental supervision of diet and oral hygiene.
I already hear complaints from my daughter when I make her drink tap water instead of bottled. There is fluoride in the tap water. Unless you have reason to believe that your water is not safe, you and your kids should be drinking it. And by reason to believe, I mean you should have some test results telling you your water is bad or you should have well water that you know doesn’t have fluoride added. Only then should you abandon the tap.
As for the parental supervision of oral hygiene, brushing should be part of routines. For us it is right after breakfast during the getting dressed routine and before bed. We recently added a third session after lunch because we are working on making the kids brush their own teeth more often and figure that an extra session would be helpful.
The diet might be the trickier one. Kids like sugar. Parents like kids that aren’t sitting around yelling that they want sugar. So parents end up giving them sugar. Watch out for too much fruit drinks and too much pop. I can’t really think of a reason why a 2-5 year old would be drinking pop, but I’m always amazed at how many of them have their own 20+ ounce of Pepsi at a restaurant. Sugar in liquids is at least as bad as sugar in food.
Cavities in baby teeth are a real problem. You might thing, but they’ll just fall out and get replaced anyway. But if you don’t develop the habits to keep those teeth clean, what do you think is going to happen to the adult teeth when they come in? More cavities when they are in grade school and beyond.
I have the fillings to prove it.
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You are so right and I am so guilty of all of those things! The only thing I hate is tap water. It may not be “bad for you”, but most of it tastes awful. I grew up drinking water from a well, and there is nothing sweeter on this earth than pure spring water! I keep a Brita pitcher of tap water in the fridge, but I have no idea whether that filters out the Flouride (but I don’t care either). Getting the boys to drink water from a cup is hard; they love the sport bottles because they’re more fun, I guess.
My kids drink water more than anything else. But you’re right. They are drinking lots of bottled water. No flouride. I will have to look into a flouride rinse. Thanks for the post.
Cavities drive me crazy. I personally don’t eat sweets except maybe a Reeses Peanut Butter cup once every two months. I have maybe 4 cans of Coke a week. The rest of the time I eat healthy and drink water or coffee.
Every time I go to the dentist, she says: “Looky here, a new cavity is forming.” I brush, I floss, I watch what I eat and drink. But it’s never good enough. Grrr.
Bad Dad, I used to get cavities every time I went to the dentist until I switched to a good electric toothbrush. I haven’t had any in the 6 years or so since…and I drank a ton of pop during most of that time.
There is no evidence that drinking bottled water leads to more tooth decay. However, there’s loads of evidence that too much fluoride damages teeth so that they are more apt to decay.
Before feeding your kids even more fluoride, check out the fluoride content of all the foods you feed them at the USDA’s fluoride database.
Fluoride is found in high amounts in chicken baby food and formed chicken products like chicken nuggets because fluoridated bone dust gets into the mechanically de-boned chicken. High amounts of fluoride are in some grape juices because of fluoride containing pesticide residues remaining on the grapes before juicing.
Fluoride is in white bread, french fries, sodas juices, virtually everything.
Since fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth, there’s no such thing as “not enough.” But there is a growing concern about dental fluorosis – a sign that children have been fluoride overdosed.
for more info
http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof
http://www.fluorideaction.net
my step son likes the soft drinks i try to encourage him to drink water i agree that tap water is grose so alot of the time i boil water fill up a bottle and put it in the fridge i find it puts my mind at ease but i hope i am not taking the flouride out of the water by doing this. i just feel it is a nicer way the water doesnt have that yucky taste that tap water has.