Talking Teeth! With Harbertonford Cofe Primary School Students

24 / 05 / 2023

Talking Teeth! With Harbertonford Cofe Primary School Students

It’s always beneficial to share the message of good oral health, even moreso to young people. Today was a great day!

Harbertonford Primary School invited me to share these main messages:

1) brush twice a day

2) watch out for hidden sugars

In the photo, the students are completing the challenge of matching bags of sugar with different food & drink products.

They were quick to spot some products were tooth friendly snacks which didn’t contain sugar e.g Babybel & houmous.

Using the ‘Change4Life’ app willing sugar detectives found out the answers.

The app shows you the amount of sugar, fat & salt in the product by scanning the barcode with your phone or tablet camera.

Water became more popular after they discovered a bottle of Coca Cola contained a whopping 13 sugar cubes & a small bottle of Tropicana orange juice had 6 sugar cubes.

The recommended daily maximum for a 7-10yr old is 6 sugar cubes!

One group thought dried fruit snacks were healthy because they contained natural fruit sugars. I shared with them that yes, they do contain natural sugars, but they are very sticky and will rot your teeth if eaten between meals. It is much better to eat fresh fruit and vegetables.

Here we are learning why we should brush our teeth with fluoride toothpaste, with an egg & vinegar acid eggsperiment!

As a reward, they were all given colourful tooth brushing charts to take home. The Tooth Fairy prefers to collect shiny white healthy teeth!

If you’d like to be your own sugar detective the ‘change4life’ app can be downloaded for free!

Christina, Dental Therapist.