A New Take on Trick-or-Treat

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a major sweet tooth. The three C’s, cakes, candies, and chips, are always extremely difficult to avoid. Some days I worry, though, that my sweet tooth may fall out!! Well, someone else is worried about this problem too, and he is a dentist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

This year for Halloween, Dr. Jeffery Bartlett and many other dentists around the country are joining together and offering to buy candy from his patients and the community. For $1 a pound, the dentists will collect candy from children in order to save their teeth and health and then ship the candy overseas to our troops in Iraq. Dr. Bartlett personally deals with broken braces and cavities due to increased sweet intake; however, we must all be more aware of the sugar that we consume and the dangerous effects they can cause to our bodies, such as tooth decay, hyperactivity, and weight gain.

These concerned dentists are making a fun and creative shift to the holiday of Halloween. They want kids to go out and dress up like ghosts and princesses, but they are tired of seeing children walk into their offices during the first week in November with Now-and-Later and Laffy Taffy stuck in their braces!! Share this story with your dentists around the area, and see if you can start this awesome outreach with your community as well. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here are some articles that have featured this story:

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081015/LIFESTYLE/810150335

http://www.app.com/article/20081010/GETPUBLISHED/810100424/1028/OPINION

http://www.ajc.com/holiday/content/atlanta-holiday-guide/stories/2008/10/16/halloween_candy_buyback.html

www.dentalproductsreport.com/articles/show/dpr1008_news_halloween-candy