He cites a 2009 ABC report on Mountain Dew mouth in Appalachia, and the outraged reaction of Appalachians. Picking on Diet Mountain Dew was a surefire way to get my attention and cut me to the quick. Singer adds, "Here in West Virginia, you see people carrying around bottles of Mountain Dew all the time even at a public health conference.". "Mountain Dew" is a centuries-old mountain slang term for moonshine, which Tennessee-bred creators Barney and Ally Hartman found fitting because their bubbly elixir was initially crafted as a . It was not a novelty, not an ironic goofjust simply a way of life. My aunt on my father's side would actually put mountain dew in her kids' baby bottles. According to area dentists, one of the main culprits contributing to toothlessness in Central Appalachia is Mountain Dew soda (a PepsiCo product). That this violence and abuse was somehow innate to what they were, caused by the culture from which they had come. As it happened, out one of the cases he was trying was a moonshiner who was reputed to make . "We are using taxpayer dollars to buy soda for the SNAP program, and we are using taxpayer dollars to rip teeth out of people's heads who can't afford dental care and are on Medicaid," says Dana Singer, a research analyst at the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department in Parkersburg, W.Va., who wants to see stricter regulations on sales of all sugary beverages in the region. But since the 14th century, poverty as a label has been used to ostracize certain people in society (5). Probably not. While Harris says that there aren't a lot of comprehensive surveys of dental health in Appalachia, signs of a rampant problem are unmistakable: Some 26 percent of preschoolers in the region have tooth decay, and 15 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have had a tooth extracted because of decay or erosion. Something known as "Mountain Dew Mouth" is rotting children's teeth in poor regions of the country, especially Appalachia. They were in pain, and theyd be hurting at school.. The basic principle in CenteringPregnancy, Rising told me in her suburban Washington, D.C., office, is that almost any group of people drawn together in a common health concern will be more motivated to alter their behavior than will a single patient hearing instructions alone in a doctors office. Drinking more than a soda a day raises the risk that acids found in many soft and energy drinks will eat away at your tooth enamel and its pearly white color. 45 min, 20 ingredients. His experience is valid, but its not everyones experience. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Like those many before him including many news stories last year Vance has just written yet another look at these poor people story. 1. MADISONVILLE, Ky. Nurse LeAnn Todd-Langston and nurse-midwife Sarah Almon had long known their rural west Kentucky county faced a crisis, but it was getting worse. are in the service sector, yet these jobs are hard to come by without a certain degree of oral health. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon B Johnsons January 1964 State of the Union address. If you were watching the Diane Sawyer special, "A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains," in 2009, you might have been alerted to a code red in the southeastern mountain region of the United States (via ABC News). This is why the folks of Appalachia reacted strongly to an honest look at some of its most impoverished people.. That's because the ABC special took great pains to show the effects of poverty on children in the Appalachian region a territory that stretches from around southern New York state to Alabama and coined a term, "Mountain Dew Mouth," which would be repeated in stories about Appalachian health care for years to come. Ive worried that I wont get work, that I will be perceived as less intelligent and qualified because I occasionally enjoy a soda thats lambasted as the scourge of the soft drink earth. It is "not good" in a decidedly unsexy way, the way other corporate Frankenstein creations like Ho-Hos and Combos are easily tossed into the furnace of public scorn. But Vance thinks that outrage is Appalachian people being unwilling to take an honest look at Appalachias problems. But Mountain Dew mouth? ------------------------------------------, the link between transportation and healthcare. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Irish and Scottish immigrants who moved to the Appalachian region to mine coal called their mixers for moonshine, off-market bourbon and whiskey, "Mountain Dew." Barney and Ally Hartman started bottling their Mountain Dew in the 1930s and marketing it as whiskey's best friend, meaning it's had a pretty manly ad strategy from its inception. But dentists beg to differ. With 26 percent of preschool-age kids suffering from tooth decay and 15 percent of young adults extracting a tooth because of erosion, Mountain Dew-mouth in Appalachia has created one of the worst dental health problems in the United States according to alegal brief by Priscilla Harris, an associate professor at the Appalachian College of Law. It was officially developed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the mid-1900s, but it has ties to the wheat and rye distilled by Irish immigrants who settled in the region as coal miners during the. Good ol' North Carolina. Its a sad story, although its also clear from his writing that there was love despite the dysfunction. Opioid addiction, smoking, chewing tobacco, lack of access to municipal water systems, and the necessary preoccupation with getting food on the table over worrying about nutritional value are also having an enormous effect on peoples teeth. Few of the women associated dental cavities and oral disease with pregnancy or prenatal problems, despite mounting medical and dental research showing the linkage, especially in Kentucky, said Jeffrey Ebersole, director of research at the University of Kentucky Dental Schools Oral Health Center. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Then when she did all these things [in the group] I said, Thats wonderful! According to Eater, Mountain Dew was invented by Barney and Ally Hartman, Tennesseans who were looking for a mixer to accompany their whiskey in the 1930s. "Mountain Dew" is a centuries-old mountain slang term for moonshine initially crafted as a mixer for whiskey in the early 1930s. Mostdental insurance limits annual benefits to between $1,000 and $1,500 per personthis cap has hardly changed since the mid-'80s, despite inflation. I later found out that a dead body had been found and recovered from the spot where the lights originated. MS. Anne and Harry M. Caudill Collection, 1854-1996, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington, Kentucky. Hes been everywhere, touted as having some new and amazing insight into the white rural Appalachian voter. Bad oral hygiene could be significantly remedied through the American health care system; that is, if the United States adopted a holistic approach to health care. According to the federal government, more than 50 million Americans live in areas officially designated asDental Health Professional Shortage Areas, and must travel hundreds of miles to get help. One of the amazing things about Centering, Todd-Langston said, is when you bring people together on common ground, even though the lower socioeconomic women are the ones that get the most out of this, by bringing them in here, those barriers go away. We stopped along the way and enjoyed beer with others who were out recreating. Yet throughout the United States, from remote areas of Alaska and across the contiguous 48, poor people struggle to get access to regular dental care, relying on charity clinics and hospital emergency rooms. It is a regular reminder that youre not just reading about a kid in Ohio with a druggie mom oh no. He is the author of, among other books, "A Queer Geography" and "Apples.". Sometimes there were drunken fights. Exploring it was simultaneously deeply cathartic and like sticking my hand in an emotional meat grinder. According to a 2012 study by Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, the federal government is spending $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion on soda purchases through SNAP. TikTok video from Katie Country (@katie.country): "They call it that good ole Mtn Dew #smalltown #appalachia #comedyvideo". The soda is ruining teeth, in an epidemic known as Mountain Dew-mouth. The acid causes erosion and the sugar abets decay. It isnt that Appalachians cant face the truth. Even if you might not crack open a bottle in your lifetime, I encourage you to take a moment and imagine a highly carbonated, nose-tickling bubble and a tart-sweet, citrusy flavor thats similar to a church picnic punch on steroids. Appalachia has a high concentration of these natural voids, including the world's longest. I utilize photography to address how images fail at representing culture. Destroying store merchandise and threatening a sales clerk were normal to Mamaw and Papaw: Thats what Scots-Irish Appalachians do when people mess with your kid, Vance writes on page 40. It was released on Del Rey's first major-label studio album, Born to Die. Today, coal has left Appalachia, as have a host of other industries that brought economic opportunity. People are held personally accountable for the state of their teeth in ways that they are not held accountable for many other health conditions.". For example, many Appalachian names are of Gaelic or Celtic origin (if you are interested in Irish baby names check out our Irish boy's names and Irish girls names posts). Gum infections, decayed teeth that weren't attended to so that by the end of pregnancy they would have full-blown abscesses; we would just hope that didnt put them into premature labor.. Each weekend, local residents can be found drinking and have a good time while riding around on these trails with All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) also known as 4-wheelers. For me, that argument continues to manifest itself on both a personal and interpersonal level. Vance grew up in an Appalachian ex-pat family in Ohio with rough-talking relatives who thought nothing of trashing a store until they got what they wanted, and who regularly communicated by screaming at each other. If you buy something from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. The bad reviews I saw from other Appalachians convinced me it would make me mad. Folklore & Superstitions in Appalachia. He cites a 2009 ABC report on "Mountain Dew mouth" in Appalachia, and the outraged reaction of Appalachians. Eighty-two percent of them had periodontal bleeding points and half had already developed recessive pockets in their gums. Medicare, the federal health care program that covers 55 million seniors and disabled people, has never included insurance for routine dental services. More recently, whats driven home the jerry-rigged wiring between Mountain Dew and Appalachia is the use of the phrase "Mountain Dew Mouth" to describe the poor oral hygiene habits in the area which have led to widespread gum disease and tooth decay. Ive been thinking a lot about the War on Poverty. A womans going to take the information they learn here and pass it along," says Todd-Langston. (This story has been corrected since it was originally published.). Close. But what exactly did that mean? And she expects that number to grow as jobs in the region continue to disappear. A problem as common as gingivitis (excess plaque) can result inserious health problemssuch as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. It was hot potatod around through several bottling companies before eventually being sold to Pepsi in 1964, and nationally marketed. Heroes can be villains and villains can provide valuable insight into how to reimagine what we think we know about our own history. With limited benefits through Medicaid and no benefits through Medicare, in order to receive insurance, people must purchase private plans or employer-provided plans. 17 More. At one time, the town was the center of a booming coal mining culture. For 10 years, Otto researched and conducted interviews about oral health in America, traveling across the country attending beauty pageants and clinics, talking to dentists and patients alike. Here she races at Crossville Raceway in Cumberland County, Tennessee. In a region long undergoing a cultural and economic crisis, Appalachias thirst for Mountain Dew is perhaps the lesser of many evils. Two days later, she tweeted lyrics . Im someone who people think shouldin so many wordsknow better. "Here in West Virginia, you see people carrying around bottles of Mountain Dew all the time even at a public health conference," says public health researcher Dana Singer. "I see erosion from the acids in the drinks, and decay from the sugars," says Steven Ghareeb, spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry and a practicing dentist in South Charleston, W.Va. "They go hand in hand many times, and they're equally bad. He is doing what outside media has done to Appalachia for generations. As an isolated industry, dentistry has remained private and unencumbered by the brunt of market forces. (Farmland is even lighter than usual in this image because the fields are fallow after the harvest.) But over in Appalachia, the region that stretches roughly from southern New York state to Alabama, the fight against soda is targeting an altogether different concern: rotted teeth. It's a thing, reports the Salt blog at NPR, and public health advocates in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia say the damage is real and widespread. Well, Ive hated it for about 3 years now for its misconceptions of Appalachia and its peoples (plural). Four men showed off a massive pit of mud they found. I remember . A Fresh Look at Appalachia50 Years After the War on Poverty Kealey Lowe is a student at Stone Memorial High School. Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program that provides health coverage for 72 million people, reckons dental benefits as optional for adults, leaving it up to states to decide. Singer says she would like to see West Virginia and other states in Appalachia try this approach. Sitting at my kitchen counter with DMD in hand while my then-boyfriend concocted an intricate lunch, without lifting his eyes a gauntlet was thrown: "You have to stop drinking Diet Mountain Dew. My own happy and stable Appalachian childhood does not make for an exciting book. This was Dozers best friend who died while riding a 4-wheeler. Many people don't help the people in the Appalachians because the poverty often goes unnoticed. We made our way to the strip mine trails and as we did, we passed Butchs grave. This level of judgement has only heightened from year to year as Ive settled into a career as a food writer. *Im not an economist, a historian or any kind of academic. The Real Winners of World Press Photo 2014: The Palestinians. Id like to think if you cut me open a little Diet Mountain Dew would be right there in my bloodstream, hovering just below the surface, like the homesickness that never quite goes away. None of them, as far as I could tell, fell into laziness, violence or what my mother might call sorryness. In 1962 Caudill published an essay in the Atlantic titled,The Rape of Appalachia. Employer-provided plans assuming the patient has a job and the job offers a plancan exceed $500 a year or more and do little to ease the burden when other concerns take priority. I have 26 first cousins, not counting step-cousins, second cousins, etc. hide caption. Regardless of cultural influences Mountain Dew-mouth or not the dental health epidemic in America is rooted in the historical and political legacy of an unequal system. He mentions that she pushed him to write this, apparently recognizing that claiming his Appalachian heritage as an obstacle to overcome would sell. A Brief Appalachian History. He had downed 4 more beers since we left Pats house, so thats 24 beers. Pat worked long hours at a lumber mill a few miles down the road. Packed with poems and prose, book reviews, science, and exciting exploits from around the globe, Appalachia delivers inspired stories of adventure, redemption, and the outdoors. This legend centers around the Bell family. 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