Sugar causes tooth decay. Children who eat sweets every day have nearly twice as much decay as children who eat sweets less often.
This is caused not only by the amount of sugar in sweet food and drinks, but by how often the teeth are in contact with the sugar. This means sweet drinks in a bottle or feeder cup and lollipops are particularly damaging because they bathe the teeth in sugar for long periods of time. Acidic drinks such as fruit juice and squash can harm teeth, too. This is why it’s better to give them at mealtimes, not in between.
The following measures will help you reduce the amount of sugar in your child’s diet and prevent tooth decay.
From the time your baby is weaned, encourage them to eat savoury food. Check if there’s sugar in pre-prepared baby foods (including the savoury ones), rusks and baby drinks, especially fizzy drinks, squash and syrups.
Only give sweet foods and fruit juice at mealtimes.
Don’t give biscuits or sweets as treats. Ask relatives and friends to do the same. Use items such as stickers, badges, hair slides, crayons, small books, notebooks, colouring books, soap and bubble baths. They may be more expensive than sweets but they last longer.
If children are having sweets or chocolate, it’s less harmful for their teeth if they eat the sweets all at once and at the end of a meal rather than eating them little by little and/or between meals.
At bedtime or during the night, give your baby milk or water rather than baby juices or sugar-sweetened drinks.
If your child needs medicine, ask your pharmacist or GP if there’s a sugar-free option.
Don’t give drinks containing artificial sweeteners, such as saccharin or aspartame. If you do, dilute them with at least 10 parts water to one part concentrate.
Sucrose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, fructose and hydrolysed starch are all sugars. Invert sugar or syrup, honey, raw sugar, brown sugar, cane sugar, muscovado and concentrated fruit juices are all sugars. Maltodextrin is not a sugar, but can still cause tooth decay.