New Survey: Texas Is Tops In Terrible Teeth

When it comes to dental care, Texas is near the lowest of the low.

This came as a huge surprise to me. While I did not think Texas would be at the top of the list, I did not expect for the Lone Star State to perform so poorly. A new Wallethub survey lists Texas down at #46 (out of 51 since the District Of Columbia is included) in dental care.

The two main criteria are "Dental Habits & Care" and "Oral Health Rank", these topics are built from data as varied as "Dentists Per Capita" to more wild-card answers like "Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption by Teenagers". The data is thorough, and comprehensive and does give a realistic picture of where we sit with smiles in the Lone Star State.

So who has it worse than Texas? Montana, Louisiana, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Arkansas took the very last spots on the list. On the other side, the states with the best smiles are listed as Illinois, Wisconsin, and Idaho.

We could do better. The poorest scores for Texas came in the "Dental Habits & Care" category and that's something that we can always improve on. For instance, Texas came in 50th in the subcategory of "Percentage of adults who visited a dentist in the past year". Something like that could be corrected and improved upon immediately.

I know the battles people fight with their teeth, with fear of dentists, and with the actual economics of good teeth. You can count me among the old people who will give you the advice of "Take care of your teeth and your feet". There are many things that are definitely worth not having if that's what it takes to get your teeth looked after.