February in the dental world is National Children’s Dental Health Month. Many of us travel to schools to preach the need for dental health awareness to the kids. Brushing twice a day, and flossing, and eating less sweets, yada yada yada... But there is an elephant in the room that is going unnoticed. It’s the skyrocketing obesity levels in children that must be addressed even before oral hygiene habits.

The most recent CDC (Center for Disease Control) statistics for childhood obesity paint an alarming picture: ages 2-5 at 22%, ages 6-11 at 34%. This has almost doubled from 2016! Our children eat way too many refined carbohydrates. Four grams of carbs equals one teaspoon of sugar. The snacks we give our kids are loaded with them. And even in the snacks we have been told are “good” for them, carbs are insidiously present. For example a 6 oz. Yoplait yogurt contains a net of 20 grams of carbs. That’s 5 teaspoons of sugar at on sitting! Pretty eye opening.

If you would like to learn more about this and what you can do to help prevent this epidemic in your house, come to one of my seminars at Figure Savers. They are held every Tuesday at 6:30 PM and run for about an hour. As the old adage goes. Knowledge is power!

In Health,
Dr. Stewart