Parents are being advised to let their children eat their sweets all at once, in a short space of time.

The source of the advice is, surprisingly, a dentist, who claims that spacing out sugary treats and chocolate bars throughout the day is actually more likely to damage kids’ teeth than by eating all their goodies at once.

According to Temple University paediatric dentist Mark Helpin, the pH balance in the mouth is affected by each sugary snack eating, becoming more acidic and attacking teeth. It can take up to an hour for the pH balance to return to normal, but this is not affected by how many sweets you eat in one go.

So, if you eat three chocolate bars at once, it will still only take an hour for your mouth to recover, but if you eat one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, each time your teeth will come under attack from acid, until the pH returns to normal.

“The longer teeth are in an acid environment,” notes Helpin, the acting chair of paediatric dentistry at Temple’s Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry, “the greater the risk they will become decayed.”

“Parents can let kids eat a bunch [of candy] now and a bunch later,” advises Helpin, who is a firm believer in the occasional sweet snack for a healthier life.