plan for my community

So for my community like posted earlier I would start out with a survey to see how many teens eat vending machine food for lunch and how many would like to eat healthy things but give into peer pressure. I would then take those surveys and from the information decide what to do. If a lot of teens wanted to eat healthy food and were very concerned about their oral health but didn't quite know how to get started I would want to implement an educational type lecture with maybe the whole school and then like each week or month have individual classes participate in a hands on educational activity with free toothbrushes and floss and cute handouts about oral health and diet and how dental caries can be decreased by eating healthy foods and educate the teens on types of foods that were more cariogenic. I would also offer them opportunities to talk with me as a hygieist privately if they wanted more information, and maybe even offer free cleanings on a specific Saturday or have a school sponsored Dental Hygiene day with fun activities and free handouts. If not a lot of teens really cared anything about their oral health and didn't really care about what they ate, I would want to kind of gross them out with a power point or slide show about people their age and how diet can affect their teeth and maybe scare them into caring!! I know it sounds harsh but sometimes that is what it takes for teens to care about anything well at least that is how I was when I was one and that is how my sisters are. But anyway, I would want to show and tell the effects of none stop eating of cariogenic foods and maybe do a DMFT Indices to see how many in the school really had bad oral habits and to use that as a basis for teaching the teens. When I talk about teens I am mostly talking about Junior High school age, about 6-9th grades. That is when most teens pick up their bad eating habits because they want to fit in. I know that most teens won't change but at least it will hopefully get them thinking about their oral health eveytime they bite into some type of candy or ice cream!! I also think that maybe having disposable toothbrushes at the nurses office or in the bathrooms might help but I can't really decide if that would or not, I could also implement some sort of educational seminar for junior high school teachers, especially health and pe teachers and get them involved with educating their classes and helping teens to be more aware of their oral habits.