Children’s school eating habits ‘can impact oral health’

A new British Dental Health Foundation (BDHF) study has found that a lack of parental oversight regarding children's eating habits during school hours could be harming their oral health.

According to the charity's survey, almost one in ten parents do not know what their children eat during school hours, with one in 20 saying their children eat fast food during their lunch breaks.

The BDHF responded to these findings by recommending that more parents take advantage of school meals, which have improved considerably in the last few years and are often quite healthy for children.

Failing this, it recommended that packed lunches should be friendly on the teeth, recommending foods such as cheese, yoghurt, vegetables, bread sticks and nuts, as well as still water or extremely diluted juice.

Dr Nigel Carter, chief executive of the BDHF, said: "It's unrealistic to completely remove all sweet treats from a child's diet. The key is not how much you eat, but how often you have them."

This comes after the organisation welcomed the findings of a British Journal of Cancer study last month showing that a Mediterranean diet can help protect against oral cancer.