David Arnold looks back on the long road to public awareness of oral health – and the part National Smile Month has played in it.
Smiling is one of the most influential expressions at our disposal. With origins dating back millions of years, smiling has remained a constant in the evolution of humanity.
National Smile Month has not been around for quite as long as the smile. However, it is certainly one of the world’s longest-running oral health campaigns.
The initiative has been running for 47 years. During that time, there have been distinct differences between the smiles when we first began to those we see today.
Starting out
National Smile Month’s first campaign was in 1977 – and was known as Smile ’77. Back then, one in three people over the age of 16 had none of their natural teeth!
At this time, the communication between dental teams and patients was at a low point. The campaign aimed to break down these barriers and get the population motivated to look after their oral health.
With decay and tooth loss a common occurrence, many people viewed having dentures simply as a natural progression of ageing. For the benefit of the UK’s oral health, this outlook desperately needed to change.
Oral health was simply not prioritised like it is today. At the time, access to education was limited and there was also little research linking problems in the mouth to those in the rest of the body. This resulted in attitudes and compliance to self-care of the mouth being poor by today’s comparisons.
The first National Smile Month
The first National Smile Month wanted to look into the problems associated with oral health in the UK. It began looking at patients’ lack of motivation to take care of their teeth and visit a dentist.
It also examined the way dental professionals communicated key information and how oral health education was being delivered in practices.
Smile ‘77 was one of the first campaigns which introduced the concept of ‘preventive dentistry’. This is something that many people are still striving to achieve.
It focused on the dentist and patient working to establish a good oral health routine and avoid problems like decay and gum disease. These are often caused by lack of brushing and frequent consumption of sugar.
The week-long Smile ‘77 project scaled some memorable heights in its inaugural year, with the poet Pam Ayres penning the special piece Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth for the campaign.
It was later to be voted into the top 10 of a BBC poll to find the nation’s 100 favourite poems. The poem stands as a lasting reminder of the positive early oral health publicity Smile ‘77 was able to generate. After its initial success, it was repeated the following year, until it was relaunched as National Smile Week in 1979.
Days into weeks
National Smile Week built on its initial success by cementing its partnerships with dental professionals and making significant progress in the way day-to-day oral health routines were communicated.
In 1984, the campaign launched in London under the theme of ‘Eat Well Stay Biting Fit’ – it was a huge success. For the duration of the week, two healthy food buses toured the city and got the children to have a go at sugar-free cooking.
More than 2,000 young children benefitted from these taster sessions. (Even then, we knew that good habits established while young can last a lifetime!)
Such activities and good oral health messages spread across the UK and gained a significant amount of coverage by the national press, at a time when oral health barely featured across any of the media.
Today, we even have similar diet-related activities – including rate my plate, which has now evolved to be an online activity.
Looking back, the 1980s really helped transform National Smile Week’s overall reputation and add it as an important date to the nation’s annual health calendar.
The number of people learning about their oral health had never been higher and the amount of dental disease was reducing as a result.
This trend continued throughout the rest of the decade, into the 90s and then into the 21st century. Awareness about oral health continued to rise with each passing campaign the Oral Health Foundation created.
This healthy, educational approach has dramatically changed the public’s attitude toward oral healthcare. A preventive approach is now seen as the norm.
Weeks into months
In 2006, National Smile Week became National Smile Month. This helped to elevate the campaign further and get more people involved in oral health education over a longer period.
It is incredible to see how the campaign has evolved over the years. I keenly look forward to making more memories and even more events in the future. We also expanded globally, running the campaign across the world to keep its core messages at the forefront of people’s minds.
We have run National Smile Month in Ireland, the USA and the UAE. Many other countries have adopted its values as a blueprint for successful oral health awareness campaigns.
Over the last 47 years, the oral health status of people in the UK has dramatically improved. Twice-daily brushing is more common and awareness about the dangers of sugar is far better. More people realise the benefits of regular dental visits and value the health of their mouth.
While we will in no way claim that National Smile Month is a leading vehicle in this change, it is a small piece of the puzzle. National Smile Month has a long history of educating the general public about the importance of a healthy mouth, and it is a mission that we will continue far into the future.
