Media Releases
20 February 2007
What's happening to our children's teeth?
Health Scotland launches free Oral Health DVD to help parents protect their children from tooth decay.
‘What’s happening to our children’s teeth?’:
A new DVD for parents on how to care for their children’s teeth
Today, Health Scotland has launched a new DVD to help parents protect their children from tooth decay. Highlighting factors such as ‘the worst time to eat sugar’ and ‘treats don’t have to be sweets’, the DVD provides practical guidance on how to look after children’s teeth. The launch will take place at Children’s House Nursery School in Craigmillar, Edinburgh.
Celia Gardiner, Health Improvement Programme Manager for Early Years at Health Scotland said:
“Our research told us that parents wanted more information on how to look after their children's teeth. They wanted to know more about the relationship between diet and dental health. Parents also raised questions on how to reduce the amount of sugar their children were consuming. We feel that our new DVD addresses these needs and are confident that it will help increase awareness so that Scotland’s children can have healthier teeth.”
Parents can get a free copy of the DVD on how to protect your child from tooth decay, by texting ‘SMILE’ to 84118 (standard rates apply).
In response to the Action Plan for improving oral health and modernising NHS dental services in Scotland (SE 2005)2, Health Scotland carried out research to understand the information needs of parents. The research showed that with Scotland’s ‘sweet tooth’ culture, parents felt that it was impossible to stop children eating sweets altogether. Parents also expected their children to have fillings at some stage. There was little knowledge amongst those sampled on how to care for children’s teeth.
The DVD will be supported by a radio campaign running from the 20 February – 18 March and bookmarks promoting the DVD will be available at all community libraries. Additionally, the DVDs will be available from NHS dentists across Scotland and inserted into 50,000 Bookstart bags (free bags of books given by health visitors to Scottish parents of children aged 0 to 4 years).
- ENDS -
For more information - please contact Paula Fletcher, Communications Manager at Health Scotland on 0131 536 5551. A still of the DVD and PDF of the front cover of the DVD are available on request.
- Notes to the editors -
1. Oral health campaign – concept development research
2. An Action Plan for Improving Oral Health and Modernising NHS Dental Services in Scotland This campaign is just one of a series of measures, outlined in the Action Plan for improving oral health and modernising NHS dental services in Scotland (SE 2005), which aims to address Scotland’s poor oral health record.