Probably not. Some 67 percent of West Virginians age 65 or older have lost six or more teeth owing to tooth decay or gum disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. None of them, as far as I could tell, fell into laziness, violence or what my mother might call sorryness. He is doing what outside media has done to Appalachia for generations. . Yes, indeed. When, in 2006, Todd-Langston got a call from Jeffrey Ebersole proposing to establish a full dental service for pregnant moms, she said it was like a gift from heaven. But Mountain Dew mouth? 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. 2. Story after story presents tightened regulations and banning the purchase of soda with food stamps as the lone solution to problems caused by excessive Mountain Dew consumption. Free shipping on many items | Browse your favorite brands | affordable prices. It is approachable, easy to understand, easy and quick to read. Appalachia has a high concentration of these natural voids, including the world's longest. For a time, I thought I could head the scolding off at the pass by making fun of myself first or displaying some arcane knowledge. Folklore & Superstitions in Appalachia. The soda is ruining teeth, in an epidemic known as Mountain Dew-mouth. The acid causes erosion and the sugar abets decay. ET. But according to Eater, the expression represents much more than teeth made brown and brittle by soda; it is an indication of the much deeper concerns in the area (like rampant drug use, economic stagnation, and lack of access to good healthcare), and how they've created a culture in which poor nutrition is not only the inevitable result but a minor issue by comparison. After Kennedys death and Johnsons announcement, millions of government dollars were doled out to initiatives that would solve these problems and turn America into the Great Society it was meant to be. It's Pepsi's #2 cash cow, second only to their flagship beverage, Pepsi, even beating out Diet Pepsi for total sales. Appalachia. These stories grew out of reporting assignments for Kaiser Health News. I think you are supposed to wear jeans when you ride these things. Something known as "Mountain Dew Mouth" is rotting children's teeth in poor regions of the country, especially Appalachia. Appalachia has a distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. Its just especially galling to see it done by someone claiming insider status. At this point, I should probably make this clear: Im no Mountain Dew apologist. "If we aren't gaining any ground, isn't it time to revise our strategy?" 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. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. Identity crisis: without coal, who will we be? Many people don't trust the well water in their homes because of pollution concerns and probably drink more soda because of it, she says. Diaper-clad, the strange critter kicked open a trap door in an apartment where three dudes . We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. And he must have one hell of a publicist. 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. Appalachian English is a term linguists use to describe the speech patterns of people in Appalachia. "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 . I said I hadnt really noticed as he shook his head. Its also a dramatic story. My dada gentle, 30-year lawyer who likes to describe himself as an "old steady sheepdog"called me a couple of months ago to describe the scene unfolding near his office in my hometown. *Im not an economist, a historian or any kind of academic. Perhaps most shocking was how poor the womens general oral health was at the start of the study. The story of the Bell Witch is one of the most popular examples of Appalachian Mountain folklore, and it began in Robertson County, Tennessee. Harry Caudill, . 2. In the mountains, you stare death in the face because the latest boy who ODd played Mortal Kombat with you while slurping Mountain Dew. 1974. On top of that, without municipal water systems, people rely on well water, which is unfluoridated or they drink more Mountain Dew to quench their thirst. This can confuse the viewer who might come across this image of the baby drinking the bright green liquid and see it as a confirmation of a known stereotype. 24 September. 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. First there are the most ancient crystalline rocks. Dentists have also found that the effects of soda on teeth are strikingly similar to the effects of methamphetamine or crack on teeth, as I reported in May. No national news outlet, it seems, cares to shine a real light on the deep and profound problems (drug wars, economic stagnation, post-coal mine environmental havoc) facing the area that causes people to place their health on the backburner and, more often than not, fall on the crutch of unhealthy food and drink. We continued up the mountain and at the very top we caught an incredible view of the Ohio River snaking across the land separating Ohio from West Virginia. 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. Originally coined in the (poverty porn-laden) 2009 Diane Sawyer special, Children of the Mountains, the phrase has been recycled over and over again throughout the national media in spurts over the past six years. O ften, photographers and journalists capture a version of Appalachia that is not a place - a vast geographic region covering 13 states with more than 25 million people - but a social and . I learned about Caudills dark turn while I was traveling in the region. On pages 228-229, Vance writes about instability in working-class families, due to relationship instability. While Mountain Dews target audience today might be neon tank top wearing bros and skateboarding teenagers, my Appalachian demographicnamesake and allwere the original consumers. Nationally, the rate of infant mortality was 211.1 per 100,000, but it was higher in five of six southern Appalachian states (all except Tennessee). On Friday afternoons he would buy several 30 packs of beer, chicken for the barbecue and many cartons of cigarettes. Very well said indeed.Vance knows nothing at all about Appalachian or Scots Irish culture.His experience is that of any disassociated urban ethnic group filtered and bankrupted by a corrupt academic system that values social promotion.The disrespect of women and moral ambiguity on display in his poorly written value bin book is disgusting,and was promoted in exactly the same Big East / NYC fashion as the recently deceased corporate coaching group NXIVM. This is why the folks of Appalachia reacted strongly to an honest look at some of its most impoverished people.. Frequently he attributes rough behavior and inexperience with the world to, essentially, hillbillies being hillbillies. The Appalachians are one of the three major mountain ranges in North America, alongside the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. We told them dont put Mountain Dew in a baby bottle, dont put that baby to sleep with juice, dont let people kiss that baby, to prevent bacteria being transferred, Almon said. unsalted butter, at room temp, sugar, eggs, at room temp and. Elbio. I view it, and much reaction to Vances own book, as Appalachian people being tired of hearing that their only story is the negative one. If you buy something from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. 'Children of the Mountains': Full Show An introduction to Diane Sawyer's in depth look at the people of Appalachia. A suburb of Washington, D.C., could have one dentist for 350 residents, while Dickenson County, Virginia, has one dentist for every 15,468 residents. */. "So this really is where you get it from." Reply I later found out that a dead body had been found and recovered from the spot where the lights originated. This kid is a hillbilly, which makes it special. 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. CIVIL WAR ERA AND INDUSTRIALIZATION. Dee Matello, a small business owner and mother of three in Laurel, Maryland, had not been to a dentist in nine years. Mountain Dew bottles by Shutterstock/Darios. Vance writes of being lucky in his life and he certainly is when it comes to this book. Exploring it was simultaneously deeply cathartic and like sticking my hand in an emotional meat grinder. Its not even, really, an acceptable guilty pleasure. A Fresh Look at Appalachia50 Years After the War on Poverty Kealey Lowe is a student at Stone Memorial High School. My teachers drank it, my doctor drank it and prisoners would drink it while picking up the littered roadside bottles. They, like Vances family and many other Appalachians, came home for regular visits and the annual reunion. The two smarter passengers bailed during the flip but I was still hanging on to Dozer with the camera wrapped around my neck as I fell to the ground. The drink is also native to the region. 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. "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. Shouldnt he have flown the coop at the first pop-a-top? 1. This is due to the influence of Scottish and . As a result, Hannah made a 12-minute audio documentary about the experience for the Appalachian Media Institute, called "Foster Care in a Pandemic World." New Fathers and Quarantine Babies. My aunt on my father's side would actually put mountain dew in her kids' baby bottles. They offer the services they can, provide prescriptions for painkillers and antibiotics, and recommend a dental clinic for a follow-up. We saw that our women werent getting preventative [dental] screening. 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). Marion Virginia: Heart of Appalachia's Highlands & Birthplace of Mountain Dew | Here's the 36th Episode in my new Exploring Appalachia series! You dont have to work to read this book. Ive heard that Ron Howard was to make the movie and prayed hed be wiser than most northerners, Your email address will not be published. Picking on Diet Mountain Dew was a surefire way to get my attention and cut me to the quick. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. 1974. Then, I look outside, and those guys next door were walking their bobcat out on a rope to go piss in the snowa fucking bobcat!" As soon as it aired on February 7, 2016, the Super Bowl ad for Mountain Dew's energy drink "Kickstart" was trending online. Required fields are marked *. Were on the 4-wheeler in the dark and we are coming down this hill. The Appalachian Mountains appear striped because the ridges are forested, providing a dense and dark canopy cover, while the valleys are farmed with crops that generally appear as lighter-toned areas. But Vance thinks that outrage is Appalachian people being unwilling to take an honest look at Appalachias problems. ", 'Soda Mouth' Can Look A Lot Like 'Meth Mouth'. My own happy and stable Appalachian childhood does not make for an exciting book. He is the author of, among other books, "A Queer Geography" and "Apples.". And by quite a wide margin, one might add. The journal comes out twice a year and has been a tradition of inspired writing since 1876. Statewide, Kentuckys PTB rate was 12.6 percent. The Appalachian Mountains range southwestward from Quebec and Newfoundland in Canada to Alabama in the southeastern United States.The central and southern highlands of this ancient mountain range, consisting of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountain ranges, the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus . Sometimes there were drunken fights. Social Darwinist thinkers in the late 18th century and early 19th century influenced attitudes towards poverty during the emergence of capitalism (6). 4. They dont scream at each other, they dont fight loved ones or strangers as a way of life. Named after mountain slang for moonshine, Mountain Dew was sold to Pepsi in 1964, where the soda went national. Mountain Dew is mountain slang for "whiskey"; the phrase appears in Irish folk songs from the late 19th century and in an American folk song protesting Prohibition. So even though hospital visits for dental problems cost an enormous amount to the health care system as a wholean estimated $2.7 billion over a three-year period according to one majorstudy people rarely receive the treatment they need. 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 previous century. So we were saved and mostly unharmed. ", Beneath all the systemic diseases linked to bad oral health, Ebersole argued, is a disastrous healthcare system in which oral health is considered a luxury. In this use, it does not relate to any type of demonic or evil activity as has . February 15, 2009 It declared a radical policy initiative that he believed would put an end to poverty in America. Should I credit all this to their hillbilly heritage? 1 in the nation in toothlessness. I look around the classmates with whom I grew up in Appalachia and the family that has lived deep in Appalachia for generations, and I see little like the generalizations Vance applies. Nearlyhalf of the people in Kentucky, and 25 percent of the national population, depend exclusively on well water, posing a threat tonatural resources as well as peoples teeth. He concluded that Appalachia could not be fixed because its people were broken. 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. And Part 2 explored the link between transportation and healthcare. 9K Likes, 328 Comments. 277. A Brief Appalachian History. 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. The beverage industry has repeatedly challenged claims that its products are destroying teeth. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. It has no nutritional value. This legend centers around the Bell family. Over the next six weeks I returned regularly, befriending the extended group of people that spent time at Pats house. Shameful or not, no food stuff is more personal to me, more deeply burrowed into my sense of identity than Diet Mountain Dew. 1. 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. In the 1970s, the people rose up and forced the government to institute reclamation projects that returned the mountains to a shabby version of their former selves. Lunsford is an attorney, however, he is very fond of folk songs. Public health . 3. Whats more, 40 percent of all births are paid for by Medicaid. And none of them behave the way Vance describes his family behaving. The Appalachian people were denigrated so that they could be exploited because they owned valuable land with natural resources. Its not just a beverageits a portable sense of home. He was unhappy. EARLY POPULATION. He cites a 2009 ABC report on Mountain Dew mouth in Appalachia, and the outraged reaction of Appalachians. All last fall I resisted reading J.D. 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. In the kitchen that day, Mountain Dew was used as a stand in for a harder conversation about our waning relationship that we had been dancing around for months. The sun was setting and flashing red lights from an ambulance and several cop cars were lighting up the sky on the Ohio side of the river. That is what brutes do. Central Appalachia is No. TikTok video from Katie Country (@katie.country): "They call it that good ole Mtn Dew #smalltown #appalachia #comedyvideo". In order to cover high overhead costs, pay back dental school bills and earn an income, many dentists refuse to treat people on Medicaid. He invited everyone to his home to celebrate the end of a long workweek, every week. Just, turn off your brain before you read this post, folks. Vance has chosen the version of his life to tell, and he chooses to emphasize what fits his narrative. 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