Chicago (Oct. 31, 2014) — As a proud partner in The Partnership for Healthy Mouths, Healthy Lives, the American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) is encouraging parents to continue to take an active role in improving the oral health of their children by celebrating National Brush Day on Nov. 1, 2014. And with so many children participating in Halloween activities today, the ADHA and Kids’ Healthy Mouths campaign want to reiterate the importance of brushing teeth for two minutes, twice a day, every day.
“Instilling good oral health care habits — such as brushing teeth twice a day, for two minutes a day each day — is critical to ensuring good oral and overall health,” said ADHA President Kelli Swanson Jaecks, MA, RDH. “By teaching children the importance of these habits, getting involved early and demonstrating to them the value of good oral hygiene through initiatives such as National Brush Day and the Kids’ Healthy Mouths campaign, parents can help their children for a lifetime. The ADHA is proud to be involved and support this initiative, and urges all parents to celebrate National Brush Day with their children — and make each day a ‘brush day’ twice a day for their kids and themselves.”
National Brush Day is an ongoing initiative celebrated on Nov. 1 on behalf of the Kids' Healthy Mouths campaign, which was initially launched by The Partnership for Healthy Mouths, Healthy Lives and the Ad Council in August 2012. Kids' Healthy Mouths recently announced a new series of PSAs that feature humorous depictions of life lessons to make the point that while parenting can be tricky at times, getting kids to brush for two minutes, twice a day can be easier than many other things parents will try to teach their children.
To take part in National Brush Day, parents and caregivers can join the Kids' Healthy Mouths communities and share new campaign images on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/kidshealthymouths) and Twitter (@brush2min2x). In addition to an extensive public relations and social media campaign, Kids' Healthy Mouths is kicking off its first video contest. The contest will encourage amateur and professional video makers to create videos showing how difficult it is to teach a child something if a parent only has two minutes, leveraging the campaign strategy and using the hashtag #BrushRules. Parents also can visit the campaign’s website, 2min2x.org, where parents and children can watch entertaining videos — all two minutes in length — while brushing their teeth. The ADHA also will share posts and information about the campaign on its Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/youradha) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/ADHADOTORG) feeds.