National Smile Month – why it’s important

There are lots of national days and national month events nowadays, and it’s easy to lose sight of the important ones and why they are important.

For the past few years, the Bridge Dental Clinic has been supporting National Smile Month, which is organised by the Oral Health Foundation and was launched in 1977(!) as National Smile Week. The event has many aims, not least of which is improving dental health, but also brings together the dental industry and brings in other groups and organisations.

The great importance of the event is that even though modern medicine and dental technology can help improve people’s oral health, there are many ways in which people, and in particular children, are suffering from more tooth decay and worse oral hygiene.

As part of the research for this years event, it was revealed that:

“nearly a third (31%) of 5-year-olds and nearly half (46%) of 8-year-olds in the UK have obvious tooth decay in their primary teeth.”

Also, it was found that: “35% of 12-year-old children are too embarrassed to smile or laugh due to tooth decay or missing teeth.”

Through events like National Smile Month, we can help to get people smiling and being proud of their smile which in turn gets them thinking about brushing more regularly, visiting the dentist and cutting down on some of those sugary snacks.