Frequently he attributes rough behavior and inexperience with the world to, essentially, hillbillies being hillbillies. 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. Appalachia isnt a pity case, and Mountain Dew is only sideshow to the heart of the matter. For those who have never had the pleasure of sipping an ice cold can of Mountain Dew, youve probably only heard talk of its vices, of which there are (admittedly) many. 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. All rights reserved. Or, as Eater puts it, "Mountain Dew is only a sideshow to the heart of the matter.". To compensate for the cracked molar on the left side of her mouth, she had simply learned to chew on the right side. He cites a 2009 ABC report on Mountain Dew mouth in Appalachia, and the outraged reaction of Appalachians. 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. Sixteen percent of the women had abscessed teeth. This is the third in a series of posts by Stacy Kranitz for BagNews Originals. In that same exodus, several of my mothers uncles moved to Ohio and Detroit for work. Instead, I drink Diet Mountain Dewswish it around in my mouth, feel it all syrup and fizzand pray to God I never become a person who gets above my raising. This unique name is an uncommon name for boys but it a unique name. Appalachia. By childbirth, all the problems had been treated; continued follow-up monitoring also showed reduced smoking by the mothers and increased breast-feeding, and led to lower levels of prescribed pain medication and sharply reduced number of visits to local emergency rooms for other health problems. 4. Becoming a parent can be scary. And Part 2 explored the link between transportation and healthcare. Vance grew up in an Appalachian ex-pat family in Ohio with rough-talking relatives who thought nothing of trashing a store until they got what they wanted, and who regularly communicated by screaming at each other. MADISONVILLE, Ky. . Stay informed by following Appalachia on Twitter at @AppalachiaJourn. And he must have one hell of a publicist. February 15, 2009 SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Under current guidelines, any kind of soda of any size can be purchased with a SNAP card even Mountain Dew, which has 170 calories in a single 12-ounce can. Today, theres a Mountain Dew to suit every tastefrom Code Red (cherry) to Baja Blast (lime)and enough generic knockoffs with names like Mountain Lion, Mountain Lightning and Mountain Holler to really put an exclamation point on the rural connection. The coal operators, who came from elsewhere to buy the land, blew up the mountains. Chapter 1: Meet the Man Who Focused the World on Eastern Kentuckys Woes.Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington)16 Dec. 2012. Other forces are at play. "It makes no sense to be paying for these things twice.". Appalachia has a distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. The term conjuring is used by people living in Southern Appalachia (including North Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia) to describe a practice of folk healing done by members of their remote communities. It's Pepsi's #2 cash cow, second only to their flagship beverage, Pepsi, even beating out Diet Pepsi for total sales. It was hot potatod around through several bottling companies before eventually being sold to Pepsi in 1964, and nationally marketed. "Diet Mountain Dew" (alternately spelled as "Diet Mtn Dew" and originally titled "Diet Mt. 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. I think it valuable for us to question how we arrive at the meaning of poverty. Its not just a beverageits a portable sense of home. By now, we've all heard of the health risks posed by drinking too much soda. To paraphrase a tweet from author David Joy, you can read Hillbilly Elegy. Part 1 covered diabetes in Appalachia. People exist, of course, who are violent, dysfunctional, addicted, and on welfare. As a memoir of a rough childhood, its fine. It was released on Del Rey's first major-label studio album, Born to Die. One. 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). This is the third and final part of a series on rural health-care challenges. The Appalachian folk song was written in 1928. Nah man that's brondo you're thinking of, Mountain Dew is mostly caffeine and sugar . How could I feel ashamed in my own house? But did that make him a bad dad? The Story Behind the Song Bascom Lamar Lunsford first wrote the song in 1928. (New York: Pergamon) 1977, 6. It asks very little from the reader. The man, who proclaimed that Appalachia had been raped, now wanted to rape certain Appalachian people of their ability to procreate. Vance and I are of the same generation. Singer says one of the best opportunities to curb the problem is targeting programs like SNAP, which allows recipients to buy soda. 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. A culture in crisis.. Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images Between about 1.1 billion and 541 . Dozer had collected several people along the way so by the end of the ride, there were 4 of us on the ATV. More than a third of Americans do not have dental coverage, according to aWashington Post article. Photograph taken during Cecil Sharp's folk music collecting expedition: British musician Sharp (1859-1924) and his assistant Dr Maud Karpeles (1885-1976) collected folk songs from the mountain singers of the Appalachians (North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky), between 1916 and 1918. Packed with poems and prose, book reviews, science, and exciting exploits from around the globe, Appalachia delivers inspired stories of adventure, redemption, and the outdoors. Over the course of two days, among the reclining chairs and portable dental equipment that had been erected on the civic center floor, 116 dentists provided $1 million worth of care to 1,165 patients, many of whom had traveled across state lines to endure long lines and the bitter cold as they waited for treatment. Were on the 4-wheeler in the dark and we are coming down this hill. They offer the services they can, provide prescriptions for painkillers and antibiotics, and recommend a dental clinic for a follow-up. The Appalachian Mountains hold some truly terrifying stories.Podcast Episode #308.Download Swamp Dweller Scary Stories:Itunes: https://apple.co/2L7znZpSpotif. Low-birth-weight infants also dropped by slightly more than half of state and national norms. Well-written review; thank you. The commercial starred a strikingly bizarre creature with the head of a pug, the body of a monkey and the legs of a baby. All the time, she answered. When initial strategies to remedy their pain, such as nonprescription medicines, failed, many resorted to seeing a dentist. 4. "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. The region of the United States known as Appalachia basically follows the Appalachian Mountains. No one is all good or all bad, but family life for most American hillbillies I know is not how Vance, wielding his overly broad brush, describes it. Central Appalachia is No. It declared a radical policy initiative that he believed would put an end to poverty in America. 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. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. But the numbers across the rural American South and lower Midwest are worse. Shouldnt he have flown the coop at the first pop-a-top? "Nothing is moving here. Please enter a valid email and try again. They have the common ground of becoming a mother., The patients are accountable to each other, said midwife Sarah Almon. Weeks later, he reported finding syringes in the street. But, as NPR points out, the same drink that celebrates the mountain region of Appalachia is also destroying it. *Im not an economist, a historian or any kind of academic. 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. THE APPALACHIAN Mountains of eastern North America comprise a north to south-tending range that extends for 1,600 mi (2,500 km) from the Gaspe Peninsula in Atlantic Maritime CANADA to northern ALABAMA in the UNITED STATES.Uplifted by the collision of continents ancestral to North America and Africa 270 million years ago, the Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountain range in North America. And I was outraged too. hide caption. We can identify them in joint infections that contribute to arthritis., He paused. Bill Estep and John Cheves. 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. The problem, they realized, begins in the mouths of their patients. 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. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.. The town of Appalachia is considered to be a largely intact "era" town of the late 1800s, early 1900s. Lunsford is an attorney, however, he is very fond of folk songs. Here are three more in-depth reviews of Hillbilly Elegy. My research into the origins of this initiative led me to Harry Caudill, a small town lawyer from the eastern Kentucky town of Whitesburg. 24 September. Its always bothering me, Matello told theWashington Post as she waited outside the Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury. January 15, 2021. Its just especially galling to see it done by someone claiming insider status. "At this point, we've been addressing poverty for 40 years," Mullins said. 'Children of the Mountains': Full Show An introduction to Diane Sawyer's in depth look at the people of Appalachia. The problem isnt lack of doctors or even access to standard OB-GYN service. Add a global pandemic into the equation and that can make things even scarier. Poor Law Commissioners. He is doing what outside media has done to Appalachia for generations. I remember this story myself. Yes, indeed. Tightening regulations wont fix an economy so tied to a dying industry that a staggering majority of residents either rely on government aid to eat or are regularly hungry. Just under 30 percent had periapical infections or pericoronitis inflammation. Would people feel as open to chiding me or ribbing me about the drink if I were a man? Picking on Diet Mountain Dew was a surefire way to get my attention and cut me to the quick. 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. But one has to wonder if the underlying issues of the region aren't addressed, will taking sodas off the menu really solve anything. We're no strangers to Mountain Dew in the south, or are we? That approach never really worked. Dew Baby". So we were saved and mostly unharmed. Appalachian Mountains. Eighty-two percent of them had periodontal bleeding points and half had already developed recessive pockets in their gums. I had been traveling too much, and when I was home, I was still distant. Heroes can be villains and villains can provide valuable insight into how to reimagine what we think we know about our own history. Without access to preventative measure like regular oral checkups and teeth cleanings, as well as comprehensive care, Americas poor fight an uphill battle, involving increased health risk, social stigma and reinforced economic disadvantage. On the tombstone, there were pictures of Butch partying and having a good time. See other posts by Stacy here. All rights reserved. Obesity. "They do their own weight and their own blood pressure measures. 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!" no food stuff is more personal to me, more deeply burrowed into my sense of identity than Diet Mountain Dew. . We can identify them in the plaque in blood vessels leading to arteriosclerosis. Four men showed off a massive pit of mud they found. ", 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. Nonetheless, the factors that contribute to poor dental health are not simply Mountain Dew; they are not even specifically linked to Appalachia. Last week, my tiny county announced the statistics for heroin busts so far in 2015: nine deaths and 76 overdoses in three months. Mountain Dew, however, remains culturally significant. Though pain and discomfort are unfortunate enough, lack of dental care presents other, more enduring problems. 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. MS. Anne and Harry M. Caudill Collection, 1854-1996, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington, Kentucky. But since the 14th century, poverty as a label has been used to ostracize certain people in society (5). In areas where jobs are scarce, a persons financial security depends on her teeth. However, even in the states that do offer dental benefits, poor patients have difficulty getting appointments. Appalachia has a distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. You dont have to work to read this book. "That guy! Since then, she's been leading the charge to come up with policies to tackle the problem. 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. 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. In both cases, its a prickly briar patch of fact and lore jumbled together. This article originally appeared on AlterNet. POSTWAR TO THE PRESENT. Should I credit all this to their hillbilly heritage? On Friday afternoons he would buy several 30 packs of beer, chicken for the barbecue and many cartons of cigarettes. Public health . Thats one reason why their babies get cavities so fast., After more than four years of the oral health and centering program -- during which it has served 500 women -- Todd-Langston and Almon say they believe attitudes in the county may be beginning to change. Marion Virginia: Heart of Appalachia's Highlands & Birthplace of Mountain Dew | Here's the 36th Episode in my new Exploring Appalachia series! Appalachia People sometimes call it the water of the south. 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. Noxious substances merely exacerbate a national problem that is affecting every region of the United States. He was unhappy. TIL that due to the popularity of Mountain Dew in the Appalachian region dentists there have pegged it as the leading cause of poor dental health or as they call it "Mountain Dew mouth". I take out teeth every week that could have been saved with restorative work, he told a reporter forUSA Today. Answer: There is a common stereotype that people from Appalachia refer to Pepsi's Mountain Dew soda as "Mountain Dew," but this is not true for all people from Appalachia. Basic education, says Harris, is also needed: "We also just need to let people know that you can drink these drinks safely, but they can also do harm. /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. I watched as they trekked back and forth in it, finding great pleasure in turning their ATVs into boats. Appalachian English is a term linguists use to describe the speech patterns of people in Appalachia. TheADAhas reported that Obamacare's requirement to provide dental care for children under 19 will be rolled back, and the 5.4 million adults who gained coverage under the Medicaid expansion will lose all dental benefits. 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. So millions of Americans go without dental insurance. The town sprang up after the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Southern Railroad made a junction there in 1890. Vance has chosen the version of his life to tell, and he chooses to emphasize what fits his narrative. As the wealth gap continues to increase, teeth represent the dividing line between the classes. As a defense mechanism, Ive become a trivia expert on the most esoteric facts available about Mountain Dew so I can titter them off as a nervous shield. 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