Smile Wide and Say Cheese Iowa, Turns Out We Have Nice Teeth

You always know you're supposed to floss when you visit the dentist. He or she will casually ask, "have you been flossing?" When they KNOW the answer is, "no sir/ma'am." Unless you're one of the twelve people who actually use dental floss regularly, of course.

In any event, Iowans are likely using floss, or we're just visiting the dentist a lot because we have good teeth according to a new study. By the way if you're a dentist and reading this, I floss. Occasionally.

Iowa teeth: Top 10, baaaby!

The folks at Wallethub crunched some numbers and figured out that our teeth are solid here in the Hawkeye state. Their study of the best and worst dental health shows some good news for your dentist: Iowa ranked 10th out of 51 (the District of Columbia was included). 10th overall is pretty awesome.

Our rankings breakdown had us above average in almost every category:

• 3^th – % Of Adults Who Visited a Dentist in the Past Year
• 6^th – Dental Treatment Costs
• 19^th – Dentists per Capita
• 27^th – Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption
• 3^rd – % of Adults Who Experienced Oral Pain in the Past Year
• 5^th – % of Adults with Low Life Satisfaction Due to Their Oral Condition

Other than a love for pop, we did pretty well. In first place were our neighbors to the northeast, Wisconsin. Ranked last? Mississippi. They seem to come in at or near the bottom in all these studies. Sorry, Mississippi. Someone has to bring up the rear.

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Now all day you'll be looking at your fellow Iowans' mouths... sorry!