When I was a kid, Halloween was by far my favorite holiday.
I loved planning months ahead what I was going to be, I loved spending a
weeknight staying out late with my friends walking until my feet hurt, but most
of all I loved competing with my brother over who got the most candy at the end
of the night when we would spread it out all over the living room floor.
I still
love Halloween, but now I know that it is a nightmare for the oral health of
our nation’s children (think Poltergeist, not Casper the Friendly Ghost).
Dental caries is a preventable disease, yet more than 25% of children have
tooth decay in baby teeth before entering kindergarten, and by age 19, 68% of
youth have experienced decay in permanent teeth. Having a ton of candy
available to children every single year during Halloween does not make our job
as dental care providers any easier. So what can we do other than be that
cliché dentist that hands out toothbrushes?
Hold a
Halloween Candy Buy Back!
Halloween
Candy Buy Back is a nationwide program to get candy “off the streets.” It was
started in 2005 and has grown ever since. The premise is simple: buy back the
candy from the children, $1 per pound of candy. Collect all the candy and ship
it (along with toothbrushes!) to troops serving our country abroad through
Operation Gratitude. This organization has created a win-win by removing the
freely available source of sugar while sending care packages abroad to troops
who could use a piece of home.
Having
volunteered at a Halloween Candy Buy Back before coming to dental school, I
decided as a first year dental student that I wanted to have one at Stony
Brook! There was one main problem…..we didn’t have any money to buy back the
candy. I got creative and turned it into a Halloween Candy Trade-In and oral
health event rather than a buy back. I got donations from stores for gift
cards, toys, books, movie tickets, bowling passes, etc. Corporate sponsors gave
donations of toothbrushes, toothpaste, animal-shaped flossers, mouthwash, bags,
and dental activity books. For every pound of candy, we gave 1 dental dollar
which functioned as a raffle ticket for the prizes that were donated. In our
first year, despite having a small turnout, we shipped over 30lbs of candy to
the troops abroad.
I believe
this is a program that should be done at every single dental school across the
country! We see the results of poor oral habits every day in our adult and
pediatric patients, and we can do something fun and worthwhile to change that.
More information about this amazing program can be found at
Halloweencandybuyback.com