A young boy and girl stood in front of their Fatima Elementary classmates earlier this week inside the school gymnasium dressed in white cloth to represent teeth. They volunteered to help illustrate proper dental care during a two-man sketch put on by Delta Dental.
Plaque Man, an actor with the company wearing a costume covered in brown strings, placed bunches of fuzz on the children, challenging the Tooth Wizard to battle plaque.
"All right, Tooth Wizard, you're forcing me to go where no toothbrush has ever gone before - in between your teeth," Plaque Man said.
But the Tooth Wizard had an answer and flossed the plaque away.
The performance included lessons in flossing, brushing teeth at least twice a day, using mouthwash and consuming more healthy foods instead of sugary foods and drinks. More than 100 Fatima Elementary students laughed at the physical comedy, shouted answers about dental care and cheered on the Tooth Wizard as he prevented plaque.
The Tooth Wizard and Plaque Man performed in front of more than 600 children in Cole and Osage counties this week in the hopes of educating them on the importance of dental care. It's an important message as half of children under five suffer from dental caries, or cavities, said Robert Coyle, a pediatric dentist with the Capital Dentistry for Children and Columbia Dentistry for Children.
Dental caries are the most common chronic childhood disease, Coyle said. It's five times more common than asthma, four times more common than early childhood obesity and 20 times more common than diabetes, according to the American Association of Pediatric Dentistry. The childhood obesity epidemic has caused an increase in these cavities, Coyle added, as more children have sugary snacks and drinks in their diets.
Frequency of eating and drinking plays a primary role in youth developing cavities, he said. Children have difficulty sitting down for a meal; and they like to snack, play, snack and then repeat that schedule.
"Kids like to graze, and their attention spans are short," Coyle said.
Certain medicines, like those to treat asthma and allergies, cause decreased production and quality of saliva - a natural agent in fighting off acids, Coyle said. Because children may experience dry mouth from the medications, he said they tend to reach for juice or other sugary drinks containing more complex terms for sugar: fructose, sucrose and lactose.
Coyle said parents should start taking their children to see a dentist at age 1. In 2003, the American Association for Pediatrics published its first oral health policy and since has produced additional policies, including the adoption of the "age 1 guideline," which states the importance of seeing a dentist at that age. There's a misconception that because baby teeth will eventually be lost they aren't as important as adult teeth, Coyle said, adding that's not true.
"The story we get often times is, "Oh, it's just baby teeth,'" he said.
Research has shown otherwise, Coyle added, and cavities between baby teeth mean a higher likelihood of developing cavities in permanent teeth. Prevention is key, he said, and parents should seek a dentist who is comfortable treating children as young as one year. Coyle said he treats 3- and 4-year-olds with up to 10 cavities each and he operates on children's mouths two or three times per week.
The earlier children are in the dentist chairs, he added, the less fearful they will be of the dentist. Coyle said this helps in cases of trauma, when children may need oral treatments after a bike accident, for example.
"The take home message in our practice is: be comfortable in a dental office," Coyle said.