According to Lisa Jamieson, a spokeswoman for the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, children as young as three are being fitted for dentures, and six-month-old babies' teeth are rotting away because of diets largely comprised of soft drinks and sugary junk foods. In most cases, parents are to blame for their children's poor diets, which lead to rotten teeth and expensive dental work.
"In one child, every single tooth was rotten to the core because the mother gave the baby a bottle of Coke every night and added four spoons of sugar," Jamieson says. "She thought it was the right thing to do -- we need public health campaigns."
Australian dentists are calling for warnings similar to those on cigarettes, only on bottles of sugary drinks and junk foods, as well as a ban on advertising junk foods.
Australian Dental Association chief executive Robert Boyd-Boland says, "The advertising of these foods is making them more attractive to the consumer, which is increasing their consumption and having an adverse effect on oral health."
Increased sugar consumption has also led to a massive increase in the waiting list for children in need of oral surgery -- more than 650 kids are currently waiting for general anesthesia treatment at one hospital.
Critics of conventional medicine point out that the link between poor diet and poor dental health isn't new; in fact, natural health pioneer Weston A. Price began advocating the effects of a healthy diet on dental health more than sixty years ago. Parents can visit the Weston A. Price Foundation website at http://www.westonaprice.org/index.html to learn more about dental health and diet.
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