Your diet should include a variety of foods so that your body can get the nutrients needed for good health. Every day, you should eat foods that will provide adequate protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water – a balanced diet.
For General Health
If your diet is seriously deficient in a particular nutrient or if you are consistently not eating a balanced diet, your overall health – including the health of your mouth can be affected. This is because the body can not carry out the function for which each nutrient is needed. Although serious deficiency diseases, such as scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), are no longer common in the United States, it is still important to eat a balanced diet every day. This will ensure that you are getting all the nutrients that your body needs to stay healthy.
For Oral Health
If your diet is low in certain nutrients, it may be harder for the tissues of to mouth to resist infection. This may be a contributing factor to periodontal disease, the main cause of tooth loss in adults. Although poor nutrition does not actually cause periodontal disease, many researchers believe that the disease may progress faster and could be more severe in the patient whose diet does not supply some of the necessary nutrients.
For Tooth Development
If children do not have adequate diets, their teeth may not develop properly. For strong, decay-resistant teeth, children need protein, vitamins, and minerals (especially calcium, phosphorus, and proper levels of fluoride). Pregnant women should make sure that their diets supply adequate nutrients, because their babies’ teeth begin to develop as early as six weeks into the pregnancy and start to calcify between the third and sixth month of pregnancy.
