Gummy Bears, the daily chewable vitamin that helps to keep children healthy, might have initially delighted children and their parents, but after an increase in cavities and dentist visits, parents may not be as ecstatic about the vitamins as their children are. 

Happy to chew a sweet, colorful vitamin, children are daily consumers, happily popping their daily dose in the morning or before bedtime. But according to dentists such as Dr. Gerald Lorino, owner of Fort Myers Laser Dentistry, sweet, chewy vitamins are mostly only good for the companies that produced them. The traditional gummy bear, marketed on YouTube to children by a singing and dancing bear, is made from a mixture of sugar, glucose syrup, starch, flavoring, food coloring, citric acid and gelatin. For parents that don’t read labels, the first two ingredients, sugar and glucose syrup, are reason for alarm. Sugar is not good for teeth and glucose syrup is made from sugar, most often from corn, potatoes or wheat, and less often from barley or rice. 

“Sweet, chewy vitamins are a trap that I generally stress parents should avoid for their children. Rather, they can try giving their child a powdered vitamin mixed in water or juice or a vitamin made with a sugar substitute like Xylitol. If not, children should brush their teeth and floss afterwards. Because the chewy vitamins are a daily repeatable thing, their consistency is a sticky nature, a substrate that seeps down into the pits and fissures and around the little nooks and crannies on the teeth. It just stays there, creating a problem,” says Lorino. 

Dr. Kamini Hoss, DDS, a dentist in California and author of If Your Mouth Could Talk, recommends putting a new toothbrush and toothpaste into a child’s Easter basket. Hoss suggests that children might be more excited about taking care of their oral health if they have a brand-new brush and toothpaste with a fun flavor to try.

Additionally, he adds that it is best for children to brush their teeth before eating Easter candy and not immediately afterwards because for at least 30- to 60 minutes after meals or drinks, the mouth becomes acidic and brushing teeth during this time can damage them. He recommends a toothpaste with nano-hydroxyapatite, the same calcium phosphate mineral that makes up 97 percent of teeth enamel. Hydroxyapatite can buffer the teeth against acidic attacks of Easter candy.

Fort Myers Laser Dentistry is located at 1550 Matthew Dr., in Ft. Myers. For more information or to make an appointment, call 239-936-5442. Visit FortMyersLaserDentist.com.