Part 1: How Do Kids Get Cavities?

If you want to help your kids avoid getting cavities, it’s important to understand how they get cavities. It’s more than just sugar! So what happens in our mouths that causes cavities? How can the things we eat cause them?

To get cavities, we need three things:

• Teeth

• Bacteria

• Food and drink

Teeth

This seems pretty obvious, right? You can't get cavities if you don't have teeth! The outer layer of a tooth is made of a crystal-like structure called hydroxyapatite. Throughout the day, that crystal-like structure loses minerals, and our saliva replaces those minerals to repair our teeth. When a tooth loses minerals faster and more often than saliva can replace them, the tooth gets a cavity.

Bacteria

Did you know that there are over 700 different types of bacteria in the human mouth? The good news is that only about a handful of those actually cause cavities! The bacteria responsible for making cavities are called aciduric bacteria, which means they like to live in an acidic environment. And they make acid too! When the acid level in the mouth drops below a pH level of 5.5, we start losing minerals from the outer surface of teeth. When a tooth loses enough minerals, it creates little rough spots on the tooth for bacteria to attach to, and a cavity can grow fast in these rough spots!

Food and Drink

The things that we eat and drink throughout the day provide a nutrient source for the bacteria in our mouths to make acid. And when it comes to mouth health and cavities, not all foods and drinks are created equal!

• Sticky foods are the ones that tend to cause cavities. They stay in our mouths for a long time, and the bacteria in your mouth use it to continuously make acid until those sticky foods get unstuck from your teeth.

• Non-sticky foods don't tend to cause cavities. They spend far less time in the mouth, so they're not available long enough for bacteria to make enough acid to cause a cavity.

• Sweet drinks are more of an issue of frequency. Sweet drinks don’t stay in your mouth for a long time like sticky foods, but they can still lead to cavities if kids have them too often. Limiting sweet drinks to one time per day with a meal is best. Kids who drink more than one sweet drink per day are more likely to get cavities.

Now that you understand how kids get cavities, you’re ready to help your kids prevent them.

Read Part 2: How Do I Prevent My Kids From Getting Cavities?