Your kids probably spend a lot of time watching TV, movies and playing video games. But do they spend four minutes every day brushing their teeth? Do you?
A new public-service campaign called “2min2x” tries to persuade children to brush their teeth for two minutes twice a day. To promote two-minute long brushing, a YouTube video channel was set-up with fun 120 second long videos for children to watch while they brush their teeth.
“2min2x” was created by the Ad Council for The Partnership for Healthy Mouths, Healthy Lives, a coalition of nearly three dozen dental health organizations including the American Dental Association.
According to the campaign’s website, dental decay is the most common chronic childhood disease—more than 16 million American children suffer from untreated decay. Oral disease affects kids from low-income families and children from these families have almost twice the number of decayed, untreated teeth compared to others.
Only 44 percent of children brush twice a day and 31 percent of parents state that their children bicker with them at least once a week about brushing their teeth.
It is vital to brush for two minutes because that is how long it takes for the tooth enamel to uptake the fluoride in toothpaste. Fluoride helps make the tooth surface harder and more resistant to bacteria-produced acids that result in tooth decay.
If your kids have trouble brushing their teeth, check out the videos and see if that motivates them. To learn more about dental hygiene, feel free to contact the Lakeway Center of Cosmetic and Family Dentistry today.