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Dentists advise parents to limit kids' candy consumption
Eat sweets with dinner or with liquids, and brush teeth afterward to prevent cavities, experts say.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Nichole Turner (center) and her sons, Knowledge (left) and Truth, sit around candy collected this Halloween at their home in Hamilton. Nicole Turner has been rationing the candy for her children in order to protect their teeth from cavities.HAMILTON — Days after Halloween, Nichole Turner still has bags full of candy at home.
Turner, 35, limits her two young sons to just a few treats a day to guard against cavities and to keep them from "bouncing off the walls."
"I don't give them a whole lot of candy at one time," said Turner, a Hamilton, resident. "For a whole day they may get 5 pieces — a couple pieces after school and a couple after they eat, and then I hide it."
Like many parents, Turner spaces out the amount of candy her children eat after Halloween.
Others like Amy Walsh, a teacher at a Hamilton elementary school, prefers for her children, ages 3, 4 and 7, to consume all of the treats at once.
Walsh said she tried hiding the Halloween candy after her kids went trick-or-treating, but they would always find it. "They have wrappers in their sheets and in the van," Walsh said. "It's better if they eat it all at once and get it over with."
Area dentists and hygienists say Turner's strategy is best for kids' teeth and nutrition.
They said cavities form when the mouth is exposed to acid created by bacteria during eating. Experts said it's best for children to drink liquids to wash away the acid or to eat the candy with dinner.
"The best thing they can do is to give it to them during a meal or right after," said Dr. Paul Pavloff, a dentist at Bridgewater Family Dental in Fairfield Twp. "When they're eating (candy) with a meal, their mouth is watering and is naturally rinsing the acid off of their teeth."
Vicki Verkley, a dental hygientist at Kori and Everhart DDS in Middletown, agreed.
She said if children don't drink liquids or brush their teeth after eating candy, the acid will attack the surface of their teeth all day.
"We tell parents to limit it to a snack or two a day and then brush their teeth afterward," Verkley said. "Nutritionally, it's not good to eat a bunch of junk because it totally coats their teeth with sugar."
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2180 or tlatta@coxohio.com.
