Plymouth Dental Students Offer Local Children A Lesson In Healthy Eating
Dental students from Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry have been teaching local children about healthy eating in a bid to reduce rates of tooth decay.
Students from the university’s dental programme visited local schools, including St Joseph’s, Devonport, to talk to students about sugar consumption. Many cases of tooth decay among young children are directly linked to the consumption of sweets, fizzy drinks, juices and hidden sugars in snacks and meals. The aim of the event was to educate children about the dangers of eating too much sugar and to determine how much sugar children were consuming on an average day.
The most recent figures suggest that the average Brit consumes 238 teaspoons of sugar per week and the students wanted to try and find out how much children were consuming and how they could reduce their intake. The students hosted interactive sessions and fun activities and they are now developing an app to help young people keep track of what they are eating and calculate how much sugar they are consuming each day.
Sarah Benton, a second year student, said that there has been a huge amount of media interest in sugar consumption of late and it is important that people of all ages realise the oral health and general health implications of eating a lot of sugar. By working with young people, the students are helping to make changes at an early stage and this will hopefully help to reduce rates of decay and improve standards of oral health in the future. Sarah added that it is particularly interesting to talk to children about hidden sugars, which often lurk in popular food products, such as bread and prepared meals bought from supermarkets and convenience stores.
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