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dental crises
2 Jun 2007 07:46 pmWhen the Howard Government came to power in 1996 it axed the $350 million Commonwealth Dental Scheme, and it has since blamed the dental crisis on state governments. It says it contributes to dentistry through the private health insurance rebate.
The NSW president of the Australian Dental Association, Tony Burges, said waiting lists for children were getting longer as dental health worsened in young people. This in turn was putting added pressure on the system.
Dr Burges said 200,000 people in NSW were waiting for public dental treatment. Although he did not have a breakdown of ages, he suspected an increasing number were children.
Children's dental health had worsened over the past decade because of diet, especially sugary fruit drinks that parents give to children as "healthy" replacements for fizzy drinks.
Another reason to not vote for Howard ARRGH.
But another major problem lies with parents. STOP GIVING YOUR KIDS JUNK FOOD.
My aunt (and my parents) is a major offender at this. Whenever my little cousin comes over, they never say no to him getting soft drinks, big slabs of fatty meat, chips, junk food, ice cream......the lot. He's OBESE. I mean it, at age 6 he looks like a 12 year old. I tell them to stop giving him stuff that's high in salt, fat and sugar, and for 5 seconds they listen, but once he starts whining they get impatient and just give him what he wants.
It's no longer good enough to be out here in Australia and saying, "Oh, Asians never get fat." WE DO, it's just in the last 50 years, most families couldn't afford obesity. In China the diet is not only mostly low fat and people didn't have that much to live off, the hygiene levels give most of us malabsorption anyway. Diet is a major cause of a lot of health problems, and for Asian kids who grow up in Australia and are used to or prefers eating the high fat, high salt, high sugar diet, no amount of genetic differences is going to protect them.
The NSW president of the Australian Dental Association, Tony Burges, said waiting lists for children were getting longer as dental health worsened in young people. This in turn was putting added pressure on the system.
Dr Burges said 200,000 people in NSW were waiting for public dental treatment. Although he did not have a breakdown of ages, he suspected an increasing number were children.
Children's dental health had worsened over the past decade because of diet, especially sugary fruit drinks that parents give to children as "healthy" replacements for fizzy drinks.
Another reason to not vote for Howard ARRGH.
But another major problem lies with parents. STOP GIVING YOUR KIDS JUNK FOOD.
My aunt (and my parents) is a major offender at this. Whenever my little cousin comes over, they never say no to him getting soft drinks, big slabs of fatty meat, chips, junk food, ice cream......the lot. He's OBESE. I mean it, at age 6 he looks like a 12 year old. I tell them to stop giving him stuff that's high in salt, fat and sugar, and for 5 seconds they listen, but once he starts whining they get impatient and just give him what he wants.
It's no longer good enough to be out here in Australia and saying, "Oh, Asians never get fat." WE DO, it's just in the last 50 years, most families couldn't afford obesity. In China the diet is not only mostly low fat and people didn't have that much to live off, the hygiene levels give most of us malabsorption anyway. Diet is a major cause of a lot of health problems, and for Asian kids who grow up in Australia and are used to or prefers eating the high fat, high salt, high sugar diet, no amount of genetic differences is going to protect them.
