The Sweet Tooth - What Every Parent Battles with their Kids

Nutrition Tips for your Children's Teeth

Use these food and nutrition tips to teach your child to choose healthier foods and how to take care of their teeth properly.

1. Feed Kids Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables that have a high volume of water, like pears, melons, and cucumbers, are low in sugar and the crunching they require helps clean the teeth. Try to limit your child’s intake of foods like bananas and dried fruits because they’re higher in sugar, but when your child eats them, be sure to brush their teeth immediately after.

2. Go for Good Sources of Calcium

Calcium is known to build strong, healthy teeth. That’s why our dentists recommend including calcium-rich sources like milk, yogurt, cheese, and broccoli in your child’s meals and snacks.

3. Avoid Sugary, Sticky, Starchy Foods

Sugary and starchy foods like raisins, dried fruit, granola bars, cookies, hard candies, jelly beans, honey, chewy caramels, and syrup tend to stick to the teeth and are difficult for saliva to wash away. They continuously coat the teeth with sugar, which can result in tooth decay. Children should brush their teeth right after eating these foods. Try to buy foods that are unsweetened or sugar-free.

4. Make Sugar Special

When you give your child sweets, serve them as occasional desserts right after a meal. Usually there’s a higher amount of saliva in the mouth at mealtime, which can help wash these sugars off of teeth.

5. Pick Plain Water Instead of Soda or Juice

Juices and sodas contain lots of sugar. Serving plain water for your kids is safer for their teeth and helps wash away the food particles that can cling to their teeth and cause decay.

6. Brush and Floss Your Child’s Teeth Every Day

Be sure to brush your child’s teeth at least twice a day and floss their teeth at least once a day to help remove plaque and food between teeth and below the gum line.

7. Regularly Visit Your Family Dentist

Dental experts recommend taking your child for their first pediatric dentist visit no later than their first birthday or as soon as their first tooth erupts through the gums. Then, this should be followed by regular dental checkups and cleanings to prevent, treat, and detect dental problems early.

By: Imagix Dental/Town Center Dental

By: Josh Levenson, DMD

General Dentist

Town Center Dental/Imagix Dental

Suwanee, GA