What’s Wrong with Sugary Sweets?

Sugary snacks are a good motivational tool. If you want kids to study their lessons, use sugary snacks to motivate them to open their books. If you want them to help with the chores at home and offer sugary sweets as reward, they’ll get the job done. Truly, sugary snacks are excellent leverage devices in dealing with kids.

However, sugary snacks can have a bad effect on their health. Sweets like candies, cookies and others can cause a variety of adverse effects; tooth decay and cavities are just two of them.

So how do these snacks attack the teeth and cause tooth decay and cavities? Well, these sweets contain sugar that germs and bacteria in the mouth love to eat. Yes, germs feed on the sweets. And some of these germs form a sticky substance called plaque, which in turn causes tooth decay and cavities.

The worse kinds of snacks include those sticky sweets that your kids love to chew. Since they stay longer in the mouth, the sticky, chewy or gooey stuff gives their teeth a sugary bath; perfect for those cavity-causing germs.

If you want to give sweets to your child, it’s best to limit them to dessert after a meal. Limit the number of times during the day that your child consumes any sweet and sugary foods. As much as possible, load meals with healthy items like fruits and veggies, which help build strong teeth.