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Kids love fruit rollups and fruit snacks, but dentists wish they'd reach for a real piece of fruit instead when they want a snack. The processed fruit snacks are usually loaded with sugar, as well as artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, hydrogenated fats, citric acid, and mono- and diglycerides.
They also affix themselves to teeth in a sugar-filled wad that's tough to remove, even with a toothbrush. For this reason, sticky foods are notorious for contributing to tooth decay because they prolong the tooth's exposure to the acids that attack the structure of the tooth.
Fruit snacks aren't the only culprit, of course. But they're frequently thought of as being healthy snacks for kids.
Caramels, taffy, hard candies, gummy candies—anything that sticks to teeth or stays in the mouth for a long period of time—prolong the "acid bath" that sugar causes in the mouth. And the longer the acid bath lasts, the greater the chances for tooth decay.
Do kids' snacks have to be boring to be tooth-friendly? Absolutely not! Granted, it takes a bit more time and effort on a parent or guardian's part to provide ravenous kids with snacks that aren't destructive to their teeth. But in the long run, think of the time you'll save when your child's only trips to the dentist are for biannual checkups and cleanings!