Obligatory Post about Dental Health

Recently I’ve been intermittently annoyed at the government. I mean what left-leaning young social sciences student isn’t these days, but recently it’s been this deep passionate annoyance at the inability of the government to say or do anything meaningful about child poverty in New Zealand.

Any of you who know me will know right now I’m doing a masters degree in Anthropology on child dental health in Northland and wider New Zealand. ‘What does this have to do with your intro of child poverty?’ you may ask. Well, everything. And that’s why I’m so goddamn annoyed.

Poverty makes everything suck. I mean, it is poverty right? But the thing is, poverty isn’t just the terrible experience of food insecurity, poor housing (or worse, no housing) and being unable to upkeep the daily necessities of modern life such as heating and shoes in winter or a functioning car. It also severely impacts dental health outcomes for children. It severely impacts so many places that seem, arguably, removed from the economic reality of poverty. Other examples include education attainment, the ability to experience the joys of a hobby, even being able to socialise freely with others. But let me explain dental health to you, because I know most about it, and there are numerous articles around explaining these other effects.

Let me start off with saying that child poverty isn’t just children; it’s families. It is parents who are underemployed or unemployed. Perhaps working several low-paid jobs to keep things together. Parents who due to these circumstances are time poor, and emotionally stressed. (Which, as a side note really frustrates me that they’re naming Child Youth and Families to Ministry of Vulnerable children, as it does really ignore the fact that this isn’t just children, it is whole FAMILIES).

This relates to dental health in the way that we enact behaviours, and the ability to enact behaviours. The two main input factors of dental health outcomes are the food we eat and the upkeep of our dental hygiene. Say, you’re a single parent with two children ages 4 and 7, and you are working full time at a low-paying job that you can scrape by on. Every day you’re exhausted coming home from work, and you have to consider what to eat on a tight budget. You’ve got two young children hungry and demanding, so sometimes, even though you know it’s bad you’ll give them a chocolate bar to keep them calm while you’re cooking. Also because of your tight budget, it’s more economic calories-per-dollar to buy easy packaged foods such as mi-goreng instead of apples, which cost the same but fill up your kids more. There’s also the added bonus there of being able to save time cooking so you can get some much needed rest. Sure, you do know very well that chocolate and processed foods aren’t ideal for your children and yourself to eat so regularly, but on such a limited time and money budget it works best in the short run.

You’re also still teaching your 4 year old child to brush their teeth properly, and again with the exhaustion from all your responsibilities working and as a parent, getting this to happen every night isn’t something that is always on your priorities list. It doesn’t help that your 4 year old is vehemently against teeth brushing and still chews on the toothbrush. You know it’s good to get into a routine with teeth brushing, which you managed to get into your 7 year old, but it’s just too difficult sometimes to be a super-parent and battle through the ritual of teeth brushing. You hear from the dentist every time you take them that you need to be there when they brush their teeth and have even been told you have to floss their teeth yourself, but it’s just something you sometimes can’t bring yourself to do when it’s been a long hard day.

You do love your children though, and you want to do the best you can for them. You make sure they go to the free dental services and try to have as balanced a diet as possible but your own life coupled with economic realities sometimes prevents the ‘healthy choices’ of ensuring good dental health to be made.

It is so important that we as a country tackle child and family poverty, to better the lives of our fellow citizens experiencing these kinds of things. The lack of action by the government, and even the minister for police saying it’s not a money issue but a parenting issue is so extremely frustrating. The tentacles of poverty go further than an experience, and are not just remedied by ‘getting a job’. It's also extremely frustrating because the government is treating issues such as rheumatic fever (with similar risk factors to dental health) as a separate issue, ignoring how it is deeply entangled in social inequality. These are people’s lives, and to me the government is sitting there with their blinders on, refusing to acknowledge these kinds of links, holding onto their rhetoric of personal responsibility and the stigmatisation of those in poverty (I mean look at the benefit reforms made a few years back).

So fuck you National. Step up or go home.