Among its other effects, the COVID-19 pandemic has further reduced young people’s attention to oral hygiene. This is the finding of a survey conducted by Laboratorio Adolescenza together with the Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences of the University of Milan between March and April 2021.
We had already pointed out in a previous article that teenagers were not taking enough care of their oral hygiene. Recently, however, the situation has got worse. The reasons lie not only in young people’s laziness but also in the social distancing brought about by the pandemic.
For young people, the main drivers of oral hygiene are appearance and social life. In 2020, before COVID, 64% of adolescents said they wanted always-white teeth and fresh breath, and 34% looked after their teeth to prevent more specific problems.
It seems that a nice smile and fresh breath took a back seat during the pandemic, because of social isolation and the requirement to wear a mask in everyday shared situations, which hides the mouth from other people’s eyes and noses. Now only 7% of adolescents brush their teeth after every meal, and many have stopped using tools such as dental floss or mouthwash, relying almost entirely on a toothbrush and toothpaste for their oral hygiene.
The gap between boys and girls is significant. Girls are more likely to have good oral hygiene: 62% of the girls interviewed in the survey, which involved 3,000 Italian lower and upper secondary school students, said they brushed their teeth after breakfast, compared with 55% of boys.
In short, the idea of brushing after every meal is struggling to catch on among young people, as is the idea of using dental floss every day. On top of this, over the last two years COVID-19 has often been teenagers’ excuse for skipping dental check-ups, and they have seen the dentist almost exclusively for emergencies.
The effects of this lack of attention to oral health are already starting to show. The number of adolescents with problems in the mouth has increased, and this trend is set to get worse over time unless urgent measures are taken to help young people understand the importance of good oral hygiene.
Credits: photo by Elevate on Unsplash
