In honor of Children’s Dental Health month, I thought it might be nice to give kids 5 ways to make sure you’re dentally healthy.

Teeth are quite important. Think about the things you do with your teeth every day: You sing, you talk, you eat, etc. So it’s pretty important to keep your teeth healthy! Yet, tooth cavities remain the most common chronic disease among children ages 5-17 with 59% affected. That’s more than half the population of kids!

 So, what can you do to be dentally healthy? Let’s find out!

1. Always brush your teeth!  

Doctors recommend you brush your teeth three times a day. It also important to prevent plaque by flossing. I used to not brush my teeth as often as I should have. My teeth were sometimes yellow. I started brushing consistently, though, and I restored my white smile! :) If you brush your teeth and floss consistently, you will have a pretty and good-smelling mouth, which is usually the first thing people notice about you.

2. Avoid sugary and starchy snacks such as soda, potato chips, and candy

Sugar and starch tend to stick to your teeth, and then bacteria builds up. The less you eat these foods, the less you have to worry about a cavity. This doesn’t mean you can’t eat those foods ever, it just means you must not eat too much. Let’s do an equation to illustrate my point: There are 10-12 teaspoons of sugar in a single can of soda. If you drank 5 Coca Cola cans in one day, what do you get? 50 or more teaspoons of sugar. Even you drank one soda each day, by the end of the month, you’d have a lot of sugar building up! (I just avoid any soft drinks at all to avoid health problems!)

3. Take Regular Trips to the Dentist

The easiest way to know if your teeth are healthy or not (and the easiest way to get rid of teeth issues) is by going to see the dentist. They have gone to colleges and schools especially to study teeth, so they are experts in the mouth! My family is planning a trip to the dentist very soon.

4. Be careful with your gums!

Most tooth difficulties start with the closest thing to them – your gums. Gums are the pink flesh that connect your teeth to your mouth. Your gums are very sensitive. Sometimes if I brush my gums too hard, I bleed and have sore gums, sometimes causing me so much pain I cannot chew. Of course, I am much more careful now, and I got a gum-friendly toothbrush.

5. Clean your tongue 

The tongue, another close organism (an organism is a living object) to our teeth, carries a lot of bacteria. This bacteria eventually gets on your teeth and builds up, and is a major factor of bad breath. I use the tongue scraper on the back of my toothbrush!

Thank you for reading 5 ways to make sure you are dentally healthy! Please remember these tips and tell others about this post. To brush up on more posts, please subscribe!

[elyssa]