This February we joined Sugar Smart UK and healthcare professionals across the country in promoting Fizz Free February, which highlights the problems associated with consuming fizzy drinks and challenges us all to #gofizzfree for a month.
Fizzy drinks are the largest single source of sugar for children aged 11-18, providing an average of 29% of daily sugar intake. Most fizzy drinks contain at least 6 teaspoons of sugar, which for a child aged 7-10 is approximately 150% of their recommended daily sugar intake. Not only can excessive sugar consumption cause weight gain and lead to other health problems such as diabetes and heart disease, it also has significant implications for oral health, increasing the risk of tooth decay which can require tooth extraction. Tooth decay is the leading cause for hospitalisation among children aged 5-9 in the UK with extractions taking place under general anaesthetic (an unnecessary additional worry for parents) and on average 3 days of school missed per year due to dental problems. All this is preventable so we continue to work with our partners, including Cornwall Council’s Public Health and Together For Families Teams, promoting positive oral health messaging wherever and whenever we possibly can.
Our clinical colleagues have been chatting to patients about these issues when they attend for their dental appointments and our Brighter Smiles team have also been talking about Fizz Free February with the children they visit in schools and nurseries throughout the county. They use our colourful ‘think before you drink’ boards to show children just how much sugar is in their favourite drinks and encourage them to ditch the fizz and drink more water, with several children pouring their sugary drinks away during class and refilling their bottles with tooth-friendly water as a result!
Outside of the classroom, families can access our online oral health education sessions and a fun short animation featuring our Dylan the Dragon, which teaches younger children about the importance of toothbrushing to get rid of the pesky “sugarbugs” that damage teeth. Our oral health display boards are also an effective tool during #SmilesAtSeaUK and Health for Homeless pop-ups talking to individuals about the importance of good oral health care.
Face-to-face discussions are a great way to spread the message about oral health and fizzy drinks but our teams don’t stop there. We also shared information about Fizz Free February and top dental tips from our Patient Hub via our social media channels, connecting with other organisations working to shine a light on the importance of good oral health. Tying in with national events such as Tooth Fairy Day on 28th February also helped to encourage people to cut out those fizzy, sugary drinks and replace them with tooth-friendly alternatives such as water or milk.
As an aspiring B Corp we’re also keen to highlight the negative environmental impact of fizzy drinks such as:
- Plastic pollution – over 40% of plastic drinks bottles are not recycled after use in the UK and take 400 years to decompose
- Excessive water consumption – it takes as much as 310 litres of water to make just one 500ml bottle of fizz, chiefly due to intensive sugar farming
We therefore encouraged our colleagues to #ditchthefizz during Fizz Free February (and beyond!) and have recycling points at all our locations for any plastic waste we might produce.