Halloween Candy and your childrens Teeth (painful, dentist, broken, cavities)

[Pearlywhitesmiles]

Five Things Every Parent Should know about Halloween Candy

Dr. Julia Shalit suggests a fun way to ensure that you do not need a trip to the dentist after Halloween.

Halloween is a fun time for kids and adults across American but there are many over looked dangers from the candy received during this time of year. Dr. Julia Shalit a family and cosmetic dentist in Fishers, Indiana sees numerous cases of broken, chipped, and cracked teeth from hard candy and long term damage from other types of candy children and parents eat. This damage can be very painful, expensive, and last the life of your teeth

Here are five things every candy lover should know

Biting on hard candy can cause stress fractures, chips, or cracks in their teeth not to mention the removal of brackets from braces

Chewable candy can get logged into hard to reach areas causing cavities from lengthy exposure to teeth.

Typically hard candy worse for your teeth due to the length of time if stays in your mouth and because of the likelihood that you will eventually bite down possibly causing damage to your teeth.

After enjoying candy make sure to brush and floss your teeth. Cavities occur not from the sugar in the candy but from the bacteria which feeds on sugars that are not removed from your teeth when you brush and floss.

A fun solution to regulating how much candy your children eat is a buy back program. Offer to buy some of the candy from your children and it just may prevent a trip to your dentist. Have a dental question email Dr. Julia at askdrjulia@yahoo.com or visit her website at epearlywhites.com!

[SuzzyAnn]

Yup, candy and soda are open invitations to cavities, tooth stains and a whole lot of dental problems in kids. For a negative case study, just look at Miss Hollywood pop-star Britney Spears, and her 2-year old son.

If you have young children, read

Help - My Child Has Yellow Teeth! (http://ezinearticles.com/?Help---My-Child-Has-Yellow-Teeth!&id=813305 - broken link)

to put the brakes on candy-induced teeth problems.

[strawberryfield]

Really??? Come one, must be micromanage and take the fun out of EVERYTHING??

My kids have ZERO candy all year long. I don't buy it, they don't get it. They've never even had a sip of soda in their lives. We don't eat Doritos or potato chips or any of that junk. They eat healthy, organic, unprocessed foods for the most part. But on Halloween, they load up their bags and consume all of it. One week of candy a year is not going to throw their bodies into a tailspin.

I suppose if they are bringing in pounds of candy, it might be different b/c my kids are only out an hour and so only end up with maybe 30-40 pieces (some small). But once a year? Who cares?!

[SuzzyAnn]

Yup, you're absolutely right, strawberryfield. Candy collecting is part of Halloween tradition for the kids, and parents should just close an eye to let them indulge in some fun for the holidays.

I was talking about having candy as part of their daily dietary habit. I should know, I was a candy junky in my school days... and I mean I really bite and chew them, and polish them off really quickly, instead of sucking in the mouth and slowly savouring the sugar rush. But that's how kids eat candy... munch munch, gobble, gobble... it's gone... faster than you can say "sweet".

But I just grew out of the habit slowly. But as a parent, I think it wise to restrict the kids' junk food intake. They really don't miss out on anything, if they haven't acquired a sweet tooth....

I don't want my kids spotting yellow teeth and cavities at such a young age. I feel bad for little Sean Preston!