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. Singer adds, "Here in West Virginia, you see people carrying around bottles of Mountain Dew all the time even at a public health conference.". It was, in his eyes, a more intimate, longterm partner than he had become. /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. Stay informed by following Appalachia on Twitter at @AppalachiaJourn. 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. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. It is, however, a drink thatfor better or worseties me to my home. Nobody ever told them not to. 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. In areas where jobs are scarce, a persons financial security depends on her teeth. In fact I did photograph a young man giving his baby Mountain Dew at Pats house. This is due to the influence of Scottish and . Oral, chronic infection untreated is getting into the bloodstream 24 hours a day, seven days a week, seeding systemic circulation. I later found out that a dead body had been found and recovered from the spot where the lights originated. And I was outraged too. Vance has chosen the version of his life to tell, and he chooses to emphasize what fits his narrative. In the special, the term was used as a catchall phrase to describe the poor dental health of children in Appalachia, due to the abundance of sugary drinks. We use cookies to help better serve your experience. They offer the services they can, provide prescriptions for painkillers and antibiotics, and recommend a dental clinic for a follow-up. Years before when visiting my hometown for the first time, we took a stroll down Main Street and passed a teenager with a freshly sprouted goatee in a cut off t-shirt carrying a case of Mountain Dew atop his shoulder like a mounted bazooka. Appalachia. 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. Native Americans first began to gather in the Appalachian Mountains some 16,000 years ago. Appalachia is an ancient land - one of the oldest mountain systems on Earth. The presentation of a drastic policy overhaul as the solitary option is a little dehumanizing, and fails to take notice of the deeply rooted social norms of the region (read: Outsiders, dont fucking tell us what to do). And she expects that number to grow as jobs in the region continue to disappear. In a region long undergoing a cultural and economic crisis, Appalachias thirst for Mountain Dew is perhaps the lesser of many evils. Mostdental insurance limits annual benefits to between $1,000 and $1,500 per personthis cap has hardly changed since the mid-'80s, despite inflation. Its just especially galling to see it done by someone claiming insider status. He mentions the law school mentorship of Amy Chua, who went on to write a book about Chinese tiger mothers. Just as the word Appalachia is generally pronounced Ap-pa-LATCH-a in the southern mountains, but more commonly Ap-pa-LAY-cha in the rest of the country, so too is there some dispute over the. Sarah Baird, a writer who grew up in Eastern Kentucky, recentlywrote about the importance of the drink to her sense of identity, saying, Its not just a beverage its a portable sense of home.. Diaper-clad, the strange critter kicked open a trap door in an apartment where three dudes . I abruptly found myself assessing everyone I met, trying to determine whether or not Caudill would consider them dullards. In late July 2013, I was invited to drink beer on a Friday night with a group of people in West Columbia, West Virginia. 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. Folklore & Superstitions in Appalachia. I would probably get fewer dirty looks if I snorted a couple of lines of cocaine every day. 45 min, 20 ingredients. 5. That approach never really worked. And he must have one hell of a publicist. To get a sense of what that looks like, check out this picture. Dr. George Kushner, the director of oral and maxillofacial surgery at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, explained that he sees ER patients with dental pain on a daily basis. Poverty is much greater in Central Appalachia than the other regions of Appalachia and about twice that of the U.S. as a whole. And none of them behave the way Vance describes his family behaving. Obesity. If you buy something from an Eater link, Vox Media may earn a commission. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. The Coal operators did not give any of the wealth they made through this devastating process back to the region. The Region also comprises three federally recognized and five state recognized Native American Tribal Communities, with Tribal entities in Appalachian Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, and North Carolina. We made our way to the strip mine trails and as we did, we passed Butchs grave. Few of the women associated dental cavities and oral disease with pregnancy or prenatal problems, despite mounting medical and dental research showing the linkage, especially in Kentucky, said Jeffrey Ebersole, director of research at the University of Kentucky Dental Schools Oral Health Center. Many people don't help the people in the Appalachians because the poverty often goes unnoticed. 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. "Oh, wow," my boyfriend remarked, a little awestruck. They want to tackle the problem with policies, including restricting soda purchases with food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and currently under debate in Congress). Mountain Dew - Willie Nelson. See our ethics policy. It turned out that just behind Pats trailer was an old reclaimed strip mine that had been turned into ATV trails for recreational use. They say it's used as. Appalachia has a distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. 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. Waxman Chaim,The Stigma of Poverty: A Critique of Poverty Theories and Policies. So we were saved and mostly unharmed. The newly pregnant women gather and talk to each other about their experiences of being pregnant, and learn to operate simple monitoring equipment. In West Virginia, 67% of adults over the age of 65 have lost six or more teeth to decay or disease. For Appalachians, a sense of place and of home seem particularly important, yet from the 1940s to 1960s, an estimated seven million immigrated north into urban areas in search of work, only to be met with widespread prejudice against any Appalachian-speaking mountain speech. Each time I hear it, I feel angryangry and ashamed. 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 $1 million worth of care to 1,165 patients, many of whom had traveled across state lines to endure long lines and the bitter cold as they waited for treatment. Like those many before him including many news stories last year Vance has just written yet another look at these poor people story. Use of thesesubstances is rampant in Appalachia; a single Kentucky county filled prescriptions for over 2 million doses of painkillers last year, which is about 150 doses for every man, woman and child. View larger map Learn More About Subregions Appalachia Then and Now And there's another reason why soda mouth is so pervasive in Appalachia, Harris says: the region's distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. On top of that, without municipal water systems, people rely on well water, which is unfluoridated or they drink more Mountain Dew to quench their thirst. 1. Chaotic people beget chaos. You get a group of 10 or 12 women, theyre going to say things, like one woman I remember, I cant believe that youre still smoking. We're no strangers to Mountain Dew in the south, or are we? "If we aren't gaining any ground, isn't it time to revise our strategy?" Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams, elegantly summed up my decades-long tug of war with how Mountain Dew relates to my identity in a recent interview. (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='MMERGE3';ftypes[3]='dropdown';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Stacy Kranitz POSTWAR TO THE PRESENT. While Harris says that there aren't a lot of comprehensive surveys of dental health in Appalachia, signs of a rampant problem are unmistakable: Some 26 percent of preschoolers in the region have tooth decay, and 15 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have had a tooth extracted because of decay or erosion. It isnt that Appalachians cant face the truth. Thats definitely a no. Brushing Teeth 'Too Painful' https://newrepublic.com/article/138717/jd-vance-false-prophet-blue-america, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/hillbilly-elegy-review-jd-vance-national-review-white-working-class-appalachia/, https://elizabethcatte.com/2016/11/19/common-people/. Appalachian or Southern Baby Names? Drinking more than a soda a day raises the risk that acids found in many soft and energy drinks will eat away at your tooth enamel and its pearly white color. The fact that it IS a narrative is one big reason why his book has gotten the attention it has, when more deserving explanations of Appalachian culture and history have been perhaps overlooked. I would see a lot of kids who had a mouth full of rotting teeth, Dr. Edwin Smith, a traveling dentist who drove his mobile dental truck for 12 years throughout Kentucky, toldCNN last September. 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. January 15, 2021. Hundreds of prescription medications, as well as chewing tobacco and cigarettes, cause dry mouth, preventing the natural flow of saliva and making teeth more susceptible to decay. TikTok video from Katie Country (@katie.country): "They call it that good ole Mtn Dew #smalltown #appalachia #comedyvideo". Just dont read it and think you understand Appalachia. Between about 1.1 billion and 541 . Appalachia has a distinct culture of sipping soda constantly throughout the day. 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. Weeks later, he reported finding syringes in the street. See other posts by Stacy here. Letter to William Shockley. How could I feel ashamed in my own house? In the mountains, you stare death in the face because the latest boy who ODd played Mortal Kombat with you while slurping Mountain Dew. "Mountain Dew" is a centuries-old mountain slang term for moonshine initially crafted as a mixer for whiskey in the early 1930s. The latter, simply titled "Mountain Dew," was composed in 1920 by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, an attorney in Asheville, N.C. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. I had on a short dress that rode high up my thighs when I mounted the machine. Its poor and thats probably being kind, Ebersole said in an interview last month in Lexington, but I cant say it's that much worse than a lot of the nation. The Appalachian people were denigrated so that they could be exploited because they owned valuable land with natural resources. In more national conversations, it often seems to take up this stunt double role, particularly when addressing rural poverty. He mentions that she pushed him to write this, apparently recognizing that claiming his Appalachian heritage as an obstacle to overcome would sell. Appalachia's money issues affect not only working-class adults in the mountains, but it affects the helpless children, the teenagers, babies, and everyone else living there. That is what brutes do. Diabetes. As a memoir of a rough childhood, its fine. Another 15% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, have had a tooth extracted because of decay or erosion. It asks very little from the reader. It's Pepsi's #2 cash cow, second only to their flagship beverage, Pepsi, even beating out Diet Pepsi for total sales. 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. Oklahoma senator concerned about dead babies in his Mountain Dew. Get the best deals on Mountain Dew Bottle when you shop the largest online selection at eBay.com. 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. The vast majority of doctors lack the knowledge and tools to treat dental ailments. Sorry, but no. 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. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. 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. Dee Matello, a small business owner and mother of three in Laurel, Maryland, had not been to a dentist in nine years. Diet Mt. 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. When we got back to Pats house, I was given a crushed up Loratab to snort for the pain. 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). Again, no. They were in pain, and theyd be hurting at school.. Today, coal has left Appalachia, as have a host of other industries that brought economic opportunity. The beverage industry has repeatedly challenged claims that its products are destroying teeth. With limited benefits through Medicaid and no benefits through Medicare, in order to receive insurance, people must purchase private plans or employer-provided plans. All rights reserved. I have 26 first cousins, not counting step-cousins, second cousins, etc. How did Appalachia become stereotyped by a popular beverage? He concluded that Appalachia could not be fixed because its people were broken. They have the common ground of becoming a mother., The patients are accountable to each other, said midwife Sarah Almon. 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