1. Make Some Halloween Candy Rules in Advance
Create your own rules about sweets before any Halloween candy arrives. Consider making a few written guidelines to post in the kitchen or family room. Include types of candy to keep, portion sizes, when to eat them, and flossing and brushing rules, for example. The whole process will help you be more careful about what you eat. Having other family members follow the rules too can help.
2. Choose Healthy Food
All the sweet ciders, sodas, iced cookies, brownies, candy and cake can be tempting. Even apples end up dipped in sugary candy coatings. All those empty calories are low in nutritional value. Don’t let sugar take the place of the vitamins and minerals young bodies need. Instead, consider bringing your own tray of spooky treats that are also healthy, or eat beforehand so that you’re not hungry. You want to be building healthy teeth and gums, not stressing them.
3. Understand the Effects of Candy on Dental Health
You know candy is bad for your teeth. More important is why candy is bad for your teeth.
- Candy is made of sugar—sucrose, fructose and glucose.
- The bacteria that live in the mouth thrive on sugar. They eat it and use it to build a sticky lattice that lets them live on your teeth’s enamel.
- There, bacteria will continue to consume sugars and release acid that eats at tooth enamel.
- Over time, the acid causes small holes to develop—cavities.
This is why frequent brushing and drinking water are so important. The less time candy spends on teeth, the less acid the bacteria can make. Less acid means fewer cavities.
4. Brush After You Eat
Brushing properly scrubs the sugars, bacteria and other food residue from teeth and gums. Ideally, you brush for two minutes after each meal. Over Halloween, add brushing afterward as a requirement to having a treat. Brushing will not only clean your teeth but also eliminate aftertastes that can make you crave more sugar. You’ll be more selective about what you eat and when you eat it.
5. Floss Before You Brush
Carving pumpkins and their snaggle-toothed grins highlights the importance of flossing. Flossing loosens bacteria and food caught between teeth. Floss cleans the sides of teeth—spots that brushing often can’t reach. Floss first. Then, brush thoroughly. Be sure to store and dispose of floss properly to prevent family pets or younger siblings from gaining access.
6. Understand the Problems With Different Types of Treats
Hard, soft, gooey or crunchy, different treats come with different hazards.
- Hard candy like lollipops dissolve slowly. Sugar lingers longer to fuel bacteria undisturbed.
- Hard candy can also chip, crack or break teeth if you bite it.
- Sticky candy can glue itself to tooth enamel and cling in spots between teeth. Some may even be sticky enough to pull caps or fillings.
- Sour candies often contain acids like lemon juice that add to acidity and damage enamel.
- Gum given at Halloween is often full of sugar, making it both long-lasting and sticky.
- Popcorn balls can be hard and sticky. Kernel shells can get caught between teeth.
- Chocolate is not as bad as some of the others, but note that milk chocolate usually has a higher sugar content than dark chocolate.
- Braces up the ante for all of the treats. They’re fragile and offer even more areas for sugar and bacteria to hide.
Brushing afterward is still key. If you love gum, consider asking your parents to swap the sugary gum for sugar-free brands that carry approval from the ADA—American Dental Association.
7. Choose Water
Water hydrates without coating your teeth and gums with sugars and acids. Instead, it cleans your mouth. It flushes away food and bacteria that can work on tooth enamel. Water is also helpful because it’s a key ingredient for creating saliva. In a healthy body, saliva contains calcium, phosphate and fluoride and is actually the body’s primary way of cleaning the mouth. Many communities add fluoride to their water to help prevent tooth decay. You can check your community’s fluorination on the CDC—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—site My Water’s Fluoride or check with your local water authority.
8. Realize That Halloween Safety Is a Part of Dental Health
Trips, falls and other accidents can end with chipped, broken or lost teeth. Those problems often require an emergency dentist and cosmetic dentistry. For Halloween, lighting in many areas may be dim or shadowy. Costumes may obstruct vision, catch on surroundings, trip you or make movements awkward. Some situations may be scary, and streets with parked vehicles can be especially dangerous. Flashlights, well-lit routes, parental escorts and properly fitted costumes are simple measures that can keep your Halloween fun. To be sure you know what to do if the worst happens, you might want to check out a blog on what to do in a dental emergency.
9. Participate in Candy Exchange and Surrender Programs
You’ll probably get more candy than you should eat. You may also receive candy that you don’t like. Many businesses set up collection and trade-in sites the day or week after Halloween. Some may even offer cash buyouts. Popular nationwide programs like Treats for Troops, for example, collect candy at local levels and distribute it to deployed soldiers and veterans. It’s a favorite for many small businesses—especially family dentists.
Make Dental Health a Priority This Halloween
Many Halloween activities focus on trick-or-treating for candy. Yet, that doesn’t mean that you have to eat or keep all or any of it. Be choosy about what you eat and how you take care of your body and teeth. It’s also a good time to doublecheck that you’re on schedule for regular exams with your family dentist. After all, when you see that jack-o-lantern or the bag of candy corn, you can’t help but think about teeth.
