Healthy Habits
As teenagers start becoming responsible for their own diet and nutrition choices, and it’s important that those choices are come from a solid foundation of dental health.
Your children may eat quick meals in the form of “nutrition” bars and fast food to stay alert and on schedule between school, extracurricular activities and part-time jobs. However, these habits can permanently damage oral and overall health. Please encourage your child to have healthy snacks such as apples, carrot sticks and cheese and seek low or no-sugar drinks like organic tea and coconut water. A balanced diet for kids is essential in building strong and healthy teeth and smiles. Apart from other important vitamins and minerals, your child’s meal should have plenty of calcium and Vitamin D and the right amount of fluoride. Calcium helps strengthen the bones, with Vitamin D increasing mineral absorption. Fluoride, on the other hand, offers protection against tooth decay.
Keeping a travel-size toothbrush in a locker or backpack can help them keep up good teeth-cleaning habits by brushing after meals and snacks.
Contact sports can cause oral injuries, but your children can prevent injuries by wearing a mouthguard while playing sports. More than 200,000 injuries to the mouth and jaw occur each year, and therefore we regularly recommend the use of mouthguards in a variety of sports activities. Whether a mouthguard is custom-fitted by us or bought at a store, your children should keep it clean by rinsing it often and storing it in a ventilated container.