Smile,
HEALTHY KIDS
It’s Healthy
What parents
need to know
for their child’s
dental health
BY HEATHER M. ROSS
GIRL: BROTHERS91 / E+ / GETTY IMAGES PLUS; HEADSHOT PROVIDED
T wenty-six percent of all Ameri-
can adults have untreated dental
cavities, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control (CDC).

This statistic shouldn’t be surprising when
sugary, processed foods dominate the snack
scene. Every drink seems to need a little
more sweetness. But what can parents do?
Dr. Travis D. Tramel, a dental hygienist,
and Dr. Susan Maples, a Doctor of Dental
Surgery, have the answers—and the books.

Maples practices in Holt, Michigan, and
has practiced dentistry for 38 years. Over the
course of her practice, she has seen multiple
generations of teeth and what she describes
as a “massive decline in human health.” She
is determined to help the next generation.

Maples wrote “Brave Parent: Rais-
ing Healthy, Happy Kids Against All Odds
in Today’s World,” an all-encompassing,
evidence-based book on children’s health,
to help parents take an active role in their
children’s futures.

She explains that sometimes that might
look like going against the status quo.

“Being a brave parent means learning
what’s necessary for children’s health and
being willing to do it even though [your
own] parents, teachers or friends are not,”
Maples says.

Dental health, of course, is a part of that,
and it can affect kids in more ways than one,
Maples says. It can affect children’s self-es-
teem and education and act as an indicator
of a child’s overall health.

“Caries [more commonly known as cav-
ities] are the canaries in the coal mine,”
Maples says, “It’s a smokescreen for every-
thing else going on.”
In the United States, 52% of children have
had cavities in their baby teeth, and children
from low-income families are twice as likely
to have untreated cavities compared with
higher-income children. For children ages 12
to 19, 57% have had a cavity in their perma-
nent teeth, according to the CDC.

This is where Tramel comes in. Tra-
mel, a resident of Riverside, California,
has been practicing dentistry for 23 years.

In 2015, he transitioned from private prac-
tice to GeriSmiles, a mobile dental health
hygiene practice that brings dental profes-
sionals into schools, health fairs, homeless
shelters and churches to reach underserved
communities. “My job now is to teach kids about oral
health, the disease process and what goes
on in the body,” Tramel says. “With men-
tal capacity and physical appearance, you are
what you eat. These things will catch up with
us later.”
His motivation for GeriSmiles came from
wanting to help people who looked like him.

“I am a man of color, and I was notic-
ing in the places I was practicing, I didn’t
see a lot of people who looked like myself,”
Tramel says. “I set out myself; I said let me
go to where my people are.”
With how important dental health is,
parents might be wondering what else
they can be doing to get kids to take their
teeth seriously.

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