# Importance of a Healthy Tongue: Could It Be a Reflection of Overall Health in Children?

## TL;DR

This review highlights the importance of tongue health in children and adults, emphasizing its role in overall oral and systemic health.

## Contribution

The paper emphasizes the often-neglected aspect of tongue hygiene and its impact on overall health, especially in children.

## Key findings

- Poor tongue hygiene can lead to halitosis, dry mouth, cavities, and oral infections.
- Changes in tongue color, shape, size, or texture may indicate underlying health issues.
- Tongue scraping during daily brushing is a simple yet effective way to maintain tongue health.

## Abstract

This review aims to study the importance of a healthy tongue along with the care of the teeth to maintain the overall good health of the oral cavity. Oral health is often considered secondary to overall health, and tongue hygiene is typically prioritized after tooth care. Poor tongue hygiene leads to halitosis, dry mouth, cavities, altered taste perception, and oral infections. Scraping the tongue while brushing the teeth using a tongue scraper is recommended, but people do not follow it. Checking the tongue is essential to screening in medical, pediatrics, and dental exams. Any changes in color, shape, size, and texture of the tongue may indicate underlying local or systemic diseases. A healthy tongue is pink with healthy papillae, which helps us enjoy the taste of the food we eat. A simple step of taking an extra few seconds for tongue scraping during daily teeth brushing can help to maintain good tongue health.

To write this review, articles from electronic databases such as PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar are studied. Results found the importance of normal tongue color, texture, shape, and size. The results further found the various tongue pathologies, challenges of maintaining tongue hygiene, and possible future directions to deal with them.

This article explores the importance of tongue hygiene in children and adults by comparing their oral care needs and practices. It also provides an overview of different tongue pathologies based on their color, shape, size, and texture.