2y ago

Keir Starmer announces plan for supervised toothbrushing in schools

www.theguardian.com

Starmer to embrace ‘nanny state’ with plan for toothbrushing in schools

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/6562239

Keir Starmer has said he is “up for the fight” of defending the “nanny state” as he announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools.
The Labour leader said that children were “probably the biggest casualty” of the Tories’ sticking-plaster approach to politics over the past 14 years, adding that, if the government were a parent, they could be charged with neglect.
“I know that we need to take on this question of the nanny state,” he told reporters. “The moment you do anything on child health, people say ‘you’re going down the road of the nanny state.’ We want to have that fight.”
Ahead of a visit to a children’s hospital, Starmer criticised the Tories’ record on child health. “They’re probably the biggest casualty of sticking-plaster politics in the last 14 years,” he said. “Frankly, if parents had treated children as badly as the UK government has, they would probably be charged with neglect. It’s that bad.”

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2y ago

Keir Starmer announces plan for supervised toothbrushing in schools

www.theguardian.com /society/2024/jan/10/keir-starmer-announces-plan-for-supervised-toothbrushing-in-schools

24 comments

This is absolutely essential. So many adults that I know brush their teeth wrong.
No, don't brush your teeth too hard. Your teeth aren't supposed to be whitey-white-white. Brushing teeth too hard will cause enamel loss. That's stuff that u can't get back once lost completely.
No, don't wash your mouth with water after brushing for at least 10 minutes. In a nutshell, fluoride keeps you from getting cavities. But it needs to be present in your saliva for your teeth to use it for remineralisation. Of course, don't use too much toothpaste or you might poison yourself.
- No, don’t wash your mouth with water after brushing for at least 10 minutes.
  Uhh...
  Enrolls myself into UK elementary school.
  
  Don't feel bad. I 100% cannot stand not rinsing that shit out immediately. It was even worse as a kid. Only saving grace is water picks sort of make up for it, but I will never be able to use toothpaste the way you are supposed to.
- There's more than one way to tie shoelaces https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm
  
  Wow, you really wrote a giant paragraph to say that something that works just fine for the vast majority of people, but is slightly sub-optimal, is grounds for dismissing someone as a lost cause.
  Yes, tying your shoes correctly does make the knot slight neater, and slightly less prone to coming undone, but it's not that bad. It most likely doesn't impact people as you think.
  Spending your whole life trying to optimize every little detail, especially something as minuscule as tying your shoes, can be a very wasted life.
- Brushing for ten minutes? Didn't your other point say not too hard? Brushing too much can have a similar effect, especially in a manual-brushing situation where there's no automated device that reacts to varying pressure.
  
  They're saying not to wash out your mouth for 10 minutes after brushing. It's worded ambiguously.
  
  No u brush only till you get the plaque out (so like 30 seconds maybe?). But after brushing, you just spit out the stuff in your mouth. You are not supposed to wash your mouth with water for at least 10 minutes. That's it.
the number one reason for young children being admitted to hospital is to extract rotten teeth
that's sad. A kid's smile is a huge part of their identity. Rotten teeth are fairly simple to prevent for many children. I support giving children a free toothbrush, maybe some toothpaste, teaching them healthy brushing habits. It's hard to comprehend someone claiming teaching dental hygiene is nanny state.
- Yeah I was about to say this sounds like bullshit, but if parental supervision and guidance on toothbrushing has become so bad, this might be a good idea, aye.
  
  Their diets have become trash, literally.
- Teaching kids how to brush is not the same as daily supervised brushing.
I hope your bathrooms are cleaner then they were when I was in public school. You couldn’t pay me to brush my teeth in one of those germ infested cesspits.
Nanny state? I would pay extra for this.
Bring it on. Help me teach my kids to brush their teeth. Let's Seasame Street this thing.
This was a thing or is still in Swiss, once every 4~weeks with the Stuff that makes a Layer. Makes sense to encourage this to Kids, can lead to Bad Infections later in Life.
We had to do this in Colorado public schools in the late 80s.
30 years later I’ve got a mouth full of false teeth.
Not sure it worked out like they wanted it to.
- It's not going to work for everyone- personally I wasn't healthy enough to maintain my own teeth and am trying to save up for dentures at 38 but my teeth have been falling out since I was 26.
  If it stops more children from needing dentures as adults it is a resounding success though.
My wife - who is only just thirty - had her remaining teeth removed in the last year or so. She’s an outlier because critical meds in childhood caused serious problems, but…
Like anything else, it’s much easier - and by the by less expensive - to treat early. She absolutely stands by her choice, and after watching her in constant pain over a number of years, I don’t blame her.
All the education in the world wouldn’t have helped her personally, given the cause, but it will damned sure help many others who just don’t understand the gravity of it at a young age.
I’m American, grew up solidly middle class and with dental care. Current me would have benefited from this sort of nudge, even if only because I would have figured out sooner just how damned important it is.
I once went to Costa Rica on a business trip, and every one of my colleagues there would head to the bathroom after lunch and brush their teeth. That's what you get when you teach dental hygiene.
Last I checked, this was common in West Virginia primary schools.
Taking bets on how long before he flops on this.

24 comments