Enjoy These Toothy Tips For This Halloween

For children, teens and adults alike, October is all about the ghouls, goblins and sweet treats. But for Dr. Jacquie Smiles and her team, we are celebrating National Orthodontic Health Month. Talk about a coincidence!

October will be filled with pumpkins, hayrides, costumes and Halloween fun, but we can’t neglect the most important part of the month, the treats of course!

Trick or Treating is highly anticipated as all the young kids and teens (don’t worry adults, you can join in too), go around from house to house, filling up pillow cases with all different types of candy. And we get it, no one wants to receive an apple or banana, give us the good stuff!

The National Retail Federation has stated that Americans purchase around 600 million pounds of Halloween candy, annually. Now, that’s sweet!

 Also, according to 24/7 Wall Street, the Top Five Halloween treats are:

• Reeses
• M&M’s
• Snickers
• Hershey’s
• KitKat

For Parents and Dentists, this can be a tricky time of year. With all the candy that is constantly being given out, the worry of dental health and cavities are heavy on the brain.

Here are a few tips for parents that will be helpful this Halloween Season:

• Monitoring how often your child consumes sugar rather than how much can help prevent tooth decay.
• Having a sweet treat with or after a meal is better than just giving your child candy as a stand-alone snack. This is due to the fact that the production of saliva increases when eating and helps wash away any acidity in the mouth.
• Always remember to brush, rinse and floss after eating sweet, sugary treats. This will ensure that there is no lingering sugar hanging around.
• Believe it or not, it is better to let your children reasonably indulge in their treats rather than pick little by little, day by day. This way, you will not be creating a constant environment of sugar inside the mouth.
• When the opportunity presents yourself, always go for the chocolate over the sticky, hard candy. Chocolate tends to rinse away easier from the mouth and teeth.
• Chewy Candy, such as gummies and caramels are particularly damaging to teeth as they are high in sugar and spend more time on the teeth as it is difficult for the saliva to break down the sugar.

This Halloween season, don’t stress the worry of candy. Making sure your children understand the importance of oral health in conjunction with monitoring their sugar intake frequency will help keep the spook out of the sugar rush.