Sweet Success: A Healthier ‘Back to School’ Approach for Better Focus

Adam Solomons | 15th September 2023 | Comment
Classroom_setting

Ensuring a Healthy Start: As school season begins, it's essential to consider the often-overlooked connection between oral health and academic success

Now that the ‘back to school’ season is in full-swing, parents and teachers around the country will be looking for ways to get their kids off to a good start in the new academic year. Expensive tutors, fresh uniforms, and elaborate ‘healthy’ lunchboxes will abound. Yet one factor which is often overlooked in these fevered preparations is nevertheless a crucial one for optimal functioning: oral health. In recent years a growing body of research has emerged linking oral health problems (like tooth decay and gum disease) with a range of whole-body issues – including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even clinical depression and anxiety. Some studies have also suggested that tooth pain and caries could be associated with absenteeism and stunted achievement in schools. Perhaps this is unsurprising. After all, the challenges of study coupled with the daily stresses of teenage life is difficult enough for young people to cope with. Add acute oral discomfort into the mix, and this burden g...

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.



What James Purnell’s return to No 10, along with the new cabinet, reveals about Burnham’s Labour network

Mark Leftly | July 21, 2026

James Purnell’s return to frontline politics is more than a nostalgic Blair-Brown era reunion. As Andy Burnham builds his Downing Street operation, public affairs professionals will need to

Ann Widdecombe Devon hamlet murder mystery continues as tributes make her a political saint

William Cash | July 16, 2026

The death of Ann Widdecombe raises serious questions about the security of high-profile politicians. The shocking episode seems out of Midsomer Murders with the former Tory minister being turned into

The Families Left Out of the Nicotine Policy Debate

Beatriz Santos | July 15, 2026

Beatriz Santos argues that both scientific evidence and lived experience should remain the foundation of policymaking, especially for understanding how people succeed in quitting cigarettes.

Olly Robbins shows Whitehall is prepared to hold Westminster to account

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | July 14, 2026

The former head of the Foreign Office is now taking legal action, putting the government's treatment of senior civil servants under fresh scrutiny.

Kemi is right to lift the white, Oxbridge fatwa and purge the Conservative party of non-Tories

William Cash | July 10, 2026

Overhauling the Tory candidates list is a shrewd political move which will allow her to put her own stamp on the party, and more importantly, shape its future,

Burnham is right: The future lies with devolution

Gill Morris | July 1, 2026

After Andy Burnham's first major speech since the resignation, devolution has been the word on everyone's lips - Gill Morris explains why it's the way forward.

Caroline Simpson: Why devolution needs this technocrat

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | July 1, 2026

Amid the frenzy over who Burnham will choose as his chancellor, his shrewd appointment of Caroline Simpson to lead No. 10 North has been overlooked.

UK’s £4.7 billion Defence black hole: Dan Jarvis is inheriting a defence settlement Britain can no longer afford

Mace Magazine | July 1, 2026

Britain cannot afford to fall behind its NATO allies on defence spending, writes Jasset Harlech.

CPAC GB 2026: “Save Britain, save the West” 

Mace | June 30, 2026

Introducing the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on British soil, a landmark expansion of the world's premier conservative networking brand.  

Merkel’s Legacy is in Tatters

Azeem Ibrahim OBE | June 30, 2026

How Angela Merkel Weakened the West and Handed Putin and Xi Leverage