I was still behind Dozer with my arms wrapped around his stomach. He cites a 2009 ABC report on "Mountain Dew mouth" in Appalachia, and the outraged reaction of Appalachians. In December, when my boss urged me to read it hes from Appalachia just like you I did not read it. 1. The fact that it IS a narrative is one big reason why his book has gotten the attention it has, when more deserving explanations of Appalachian culture and history have been perhaps overlooked. Appalachia is an ancient land - one of the oldest mountain systems on Earth. no shoes!) Perhaps most shocking was how poor the womens general oral health was at the start of the study. How could I feel ashamed in my own house? ------------------------------------------, Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas, Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America. How did Appalachia become stereotyped by a popular beverage? I had been traveling too much, and when I was home, I was still distant. "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. 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. We're no strangers to Mountain Dew in the south, or are we? Singer adds, "Here in West Virginia, you see people carrying around bottles of Mountain Dew all the time even at a public health conference.". A study published in theNation Bureau of Economic Research found that a missing tooth can result in a loss of $720 of earnings (and178 million peopleare missing at least one tooth). Appalachia has a high concentration of these natural voids, including the world's longest. I saw him pick up and throw several chairs and then punch a friend in the face. He mentions his aunt, who had an early abusive marriage, and his mother. Obesity. Cherokee Indians were the main Native American group of the Southern Appalachian and Blue Ridge region, but there were also Iroquois, Powhatan, and Shawnee people.. While millions of Americans suffer because of their teeth, another portion of America supports a $110 billion-a-year dental industry, investing in procedures such as gum contouring and spending up to $2,000 on a single veneer. In a region long undergoing a cultural and economic crisis, Appalachias thirst for Mountain Dew is perhaps the lesser of many evils. Less than 300 feet into our journey home, we rolled and tumbled. Again, no. 2. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, Mountain Dew was not a novelty, not an ironic goofjust simply a way of life. In more national conversations, it often seems to take up this stunt double role, particularly when addressing rural poverty. Appalachians are portrayed as individuals who are unable to get out of their own way problems caused by excessive Mountain Dew consumption. 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. Other forces are at play. Dew Baby") is a song written by Lana Del Rey and Mike Daly and produced by Emile Haynie and Jeff Bhasker. Hundreds of prescription medications, as well as chewing tobacco and cigarettes, cause dry mouth, preventing the natural flow of saliva and making teeth more susceptible to decay. Family and friends stopped by to share stories, complain about hardships and seek advice for problems. Sorry, but no. 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. Marion Virginia: Heart of Appalachia's Highlands & Birthplace of Mountain Dew | Here's the 36th Episode in my new Exploring Appalachia series! https://newrepublic.com/article/138717/jd-vance-false-prophet-blue-america, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/hillbilly-elegy-review-jd-vance-national-review-white-working-class-appalachia/, https://elizabethcatte.com/2016/11/19/common-people/. Like those many before him including many news stories last year Vance has just written yet another look at these poor people story. You get a group of 10 or 12 women, theyre going to say things, like one woman I remember, I cant believe that youre still smoking. */. It asks very little from the reader. And Part 2 explored the link between transportation and healthcare. 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. The high levels of consumption of sugary drinks, like. Nah man that's brondo you're thinking of, Mountain Dew is mostly caffeine and sugar . It also seems that along the way, he had already been writing something for the conservative outlets like the National Review (whose editor has a glowing blurb on the back cover, as does Chua) that helped promote him and make him the hillbilly whisperer for more mainstream publications. People exist, of course, who are violent, dysfunctional, addicted, and on welfare. It is a regular reminder that youre not just reading about a kid in Ohio with a druggie mom oh no. Eighty-two percent of them had periodontal bleeding points and half had already developed recessive pockets in their gums. In that same exodus, several of my mothers uncles moved to Ohio and Detroit for work. You can see the rest of the series here. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. We went up the mountain without a problem; it was the end of summer and the trails were overgrown. Frank Browning reported for nearly 30 years for NPR on sex, science and farming. Poor Law Amendment Act, 1841. In areas where jobs are scarce, a persons financial security depends on her teeth. Consider what every movie star, news anchor and television personality has in common: not height, weight or ethnicity (though there is certainly an enormous amount of room for more diversity). 5. Or, as Eater puts it, "Mountain Dew is only a sideshow to the heart of the matter.". For me, this photograph is valuable because it shows us how little we actually know when viewing this image, any image. Even today when I discuss drinking it in public, people look at me incredulously as if waiting for a punchline. They have the common ground of becoming a mother., The patients are accountable to each other, said midwife Sarah Almon. The latter, simply titled "Mountain Dew," was composed in 1920 by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, an attorney in Asheville, N.C. And there's another reason why soda mouth is so pervasive in Appalachia, Harris says: the region's distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. "Oh, wow," my boyfriend remarked, a little awestruck. "So this really is where you get it from." She's received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the problem. He also fetishizes his idea of being a hillbilly and the traits he believes go along with that. I said I hadnt really noticed as he shook his head. 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. Public health advocates say soft drinks are driving the region's alarmingly high incidence of eroded brown teeth a phenomenon dubbed "Mountain Dew mouth," after the region's favorite drink. Mountain Dew, however, remains culturally significant. Mountain Dew, the carbonated fluorescent-green soda that Willy the Hillbilly declared will tickle your innards in a 1966commercial, has long been a staple of Appalachia. Its also a dramatic story. 1974. It is, however, a drink thatfor better or worseties me to my home. The Appalachians are the oldest mountain range in North America. On April 28, 2009, Del Rey tweeted "Mike Daly is Really fucking good. The town of Appalachia is considered to be a largely intact "era" town of the late 1800s, early 1900s. 3. Its poor and thats probably being kind, Ebersole said in an interview last month in Lexington, but I cant say it's that much worse than a lot of the nation. 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. Before pursuing that lofty goal he was a lawyer, which is where he got the source material for Mountain Dew. Anyone who did not abide by the prevailing pattern of consumption was ostracized. Its always bothering me, Matello told theWashington Post as she waited outside the Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury. If you buy something from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. As Healthline tells us, the sugar in sodas reacts with the bacteria in our mouths to form a dangerous acid, breaking down the protective layers in your teeth and causing cavities. Vances book is simplistic, and it generalizes. "What Mountain Dew has going for it is that it's high in caffeine and high in sugar," Harris says, adding, "Students tell us it tastes best, and it's a habit.". ", 'Soda Mouth' Can Look A Lot Like 'Meth Mouth'. That approach never really worked. Central Appalachia is No. However, this poses a significant problem because, in the eyes of the American health care system, the mouth is separate from the rest of the body. The maternal death rate in southern Appalachia was 12.7 per 100,000 births, compared with rates of 15.1 per 100,000 for the entire rural United States and 16.3 per 100,000 in the nation as a whole. This article originally appeared on AlterNet. 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. "We encourage women to be caregivers themselves, to pass it along to family and friends and think, Im doing some good that helps people., These women share their particular strategies, how they're dealing with particular problems, says Sharon Riding. Diet Mt. This kid is a hillbilly, which makes it special. Bascom Lamar Lunsford, born in Mars Hill, North Carolinain 1882, was what amounts to the first Appalachian ethnomusicologist- but not at first. Mountain Dew bottles by Shutterstock/Darios. On our way down the daylight faded and we navigated the terrain of the trail from our ATVs headlights. It was released on Del Rey's first major-label studio album, Born to Die. Shameful or not, no food stuff is more personal to me, more deeply burrowed into my sense of identity than Diet Mountain Dew. 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. Brushing Teeth 'Too Painful' "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. Something known as "Mountain Dew Mouth" is rotting children's teeth in poor regions of the country, especially Appalachia. Mostdental insurance limits annual benefits to between $1,000 and $1,500 per personthis cap has hardly changed since the mid-'80s, despite inflation. While you may think of " Appalachia " as a region of the southern United States, the full Appalachian Mountains have a massive (not to . According to a report from WiseG About Us "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 mixer for whiskey in the early 1930s. Oral care practitioners are familiar with the term "Mountain Dew Mouth," as the particular brand has far more acid and sugar in comparison to other sodas. The newly pregnant women gather and talk to each other about their experiences of being pregnant, and learn to operate simple monitoring equipment. Should I credit all this to their hillbilly heritage? In my latest video I discuss folklore and superstitions. A Brief Appalachian History. 1974. Appalachian Mountains. Medicare, the federal health care program that covers 55 million seniors and disabled people, has never included insurance for routine dental services. Eater puts it, `` Mountain Dew consumption and friends stopped by to share stories, about. Earn appalachia mountain dew babies commission growing up in Eastern Kentucky, Mountain Dew in face! It was the end of summer and the trails were overgrown has just written yet look! Saw him pick up and throw several chairs and then punch a friend in the U.S. Patent and Office. 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