Healthy Mouth, Healthy Body

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Healthy Mouth, Healthy Body. Our children’s future is being compromised by a largely preventable disease that. Maine could easily address and with great …

Website: www.watchyourmouth.org | Filesize: 121kb

Content
Healthy Mouth, Healthy Body
Our children’s future is being compromised by a largely preventable disease that
Maine could easily address and with great effect. Tooth decay is now five times more
common than asthma among six year olds, making it the most common chronic
childhood disease in America. Because oral disease is an infectious disease, if untreated,
the problems get worse as children age - by the time kids reach age 17, four out of five will
suffer the consequences of poor oral health.
A report by the US Surgeon General in 2000 highlighted the consequences of inaction. If
our communities do not address the problem, more and more of our children will have
difficulty eating and sleeping, paying attention to parents and concentrating in school.
Further, recent research has confirmed that good oral health is vital to overall health -oral
disease has been linked to poor nutrition, diabetes and heart disease. Fortunately, oral disease
is preventable and treatable.i
Fluoridation of public water is the single most effective way to prevent tooth decay for all
people, but only about 48% of Maine people use public water supplies. As a result, two out
of three Maine residents do not…