It's Not What You Eat, It's When: How to Protect Children's Teeth from Decay

Transcript

Hi everyone, I hope you're all well. Finally the sun is shining in London and it is such a beautiful day. Hopefully this will lift all of our spirits and get us in a much more positive mood while we're all in self-isolation and missing our loved ones so much.

Today I wanted to talk about dental decay in children's teeth. Children's teeth are really really soft and dental decay and bacteria can travel through it much more quickly and much more easily than it can with adult teeth. And that's why it's really really important to look after our children's teeth especially in this time when the dental practices are closed and it's really difficult to get a dental appointment unless it's a very very important emergency and even then the kind of work that the dentist can do at this time is very very limited all because of the coronavirus and reducing the risk of contamination and cross infection and so on.

So we really really want to avoid as much as possible having any dental problems at this time. So this message is to all parents and guardians and caretakers and even for adults who can benefit from it as much as possible. When it comes to teeth it's not about what you eat it's about when you eat it and so I'm not going to go into diet and what foods to encourage and what foods to avoid with children.

That's a very long subject and very complicated depending on your children's health, age and lots of other factors but what I want to talk about which is universal when it comes to dentistry is the timing that you give them treats, snacks and that might be fruit snacks, fruit juices, anything even if it is things that are supposed to be really really healthy. To avoid dental decay the first thing that you need to do is reduce any snacking and reduce any grazing as much as possible and try to keep meal times or the meal episodes to four times a day. So that could include three meals and one snack, it could include four snacks, it can include four main meals, it doesn't matter what it is even if it's a fruit juice that is still considered as a food intake and an acid attack episode on your teeth.

So how can we do this? How can we do this? What you need to do is if you're going to give your child any type of treats, give it to them immediately after their main meal and not half an hour later or an hour later after their meal.

Try to do it immediately after their main meal so that it's considered the same episode of food. And that is the biggest way to prevent any dental decay as much as possible. And that like I said, that also includes fruits.

So if your child is having a fruit snack, that's considered one episode of food intake. If they are having a fruit juice, even if it's a really healthy innocent smoothie, again that is considered another episode of food intake. So as much as possible, if you're going to give them fruit juices, treats, chocolate, cake, etc.

Even fruit, try to do it immediately after their main meal or let them have their three main meals and one snack. Try to avoid snacking and grazing as much as possible as this is the biggest cause of dental decay and dental caries. Best of luck to you all and hopefully healthy teeth and healthy smiles throughout this time.