Korean Job Discussion Forums

[seoulman1]

I teach some of the cutest kids in the world but when i get them to talk I am confronted with the jaws from hell! A set of triangle devil teeth a stale brown color. Some kids teeth are already full of fillings! Some just have random decaying black and green ones, looks really painful...

I would have thought Korean kids teeth would be better than western kids jut due to the sugar difference in the diets.

Why are these kids teeth so messed up? Is it due to some strange Korean dental tradition?

[taobenli]

There is a great deal of sugar in Korean foods (like gochujang!), and a lot of kids snack a lot too.

Plus, the kids I live with don't brush that well. But their teeth actually seem fine so far...

[shaunew]

I know what you mean. Some kids are just gross, If you work in the more poor parts of Seoul you can see it even more.

[Treefarmer]

have you seen the amount of crap some kids eat? some of them are too high on candy to study as well

[seoulman1]

yeh but when they are at school they eat rice, kimchi and other vegetable side dishes. As opposed to fries, sausage rolls and a can of coke..

[jay-shi]

The first three things that come to mind, and just for the record, I am not a dentist or an expert on the matter so could be way off.

1) Their diet isn't as dairy oriented as ours, especially the young. I remember as a child being force fed milk and told it was for good strong teeth.

2) Most of their toothpaste brands contain no fluoride.

3) Dentists are relatively cheap here and most people trust them on their word without asking any questions (as they do with doctors). So the dentists might be pulling in a bit of extra dough telling Min-Soo's mommy that she needs fillings, they're only baby teeth anyways.

[indytrucks]

[mysterious700]

really?? no flouride in toothpaste?? yikes! I am a newbie and still using up a few months worth of canadian toothpaste. i teach in a small city in public school and many of the kids have decent teeth and braces. so, it may not be so bad. i teach middle school students. some fillings in teenagers aren't a big deal, so long as they aren't missing teeth or a filling right through the front of the tooth.

[butlerian]

[indytrucks]

[bluelake]

When I used Korean toothpaste, I ended up having dental work done while in the States (two fillings). When I brought fluoride toothpaste with me, and used it, my Stateside dentist said my teeth were in great condition. I always bring some Pepsodent or Colgate with me when I return to Korea.

Back about sixteen years ago, a Korean prof friend of mine had a son my son's age; he had a mouth full of rotten teeth. He came down with bacterial meningitis and died. I've heard that such diseases can come from gum infections and I always suspected the rotten teeth.

[mindmetoo]

There was a popular antibiotic years ago that would cause children to develop cloudy/grey poorly formed teeth. I can see the Korean medical community not catching on for a long time...

[steroidmaximus]

inbreeding

[CeleryMan]

Greedy incompetent dentists.

[blaseblasphemener]

There is little to no evidence that fluoride does anything to prevent cavities. If you look into the history of fluoridation, it was brought in in the 1930s, with little to no scientific basis to it.

The reason why korean kids have such bad teeth is because commonly, Korean parents didn't care if their kids brushed their teeth, because they were baby teeth and would fall out eventually. The whole idea of gum disease wasn't really considered.