Orthodontic Blog - Fresh Orthodontics

A trend is growing in Southeast Asia that has potential health risks and involves dentistry. People are buying fake braces and getting them adhered to their teeth. These braces serve absolutely no function other than looking funny and ruining oral health, but they are nonetheless very popular among teens from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Although it may be hard to understand why this is happening, I will talk a little about the causes of this new trend, its development and its risks.

Medical science is not an exact science in the same way that chemistry and physics are. The reasons for this is because we are dealing with complex biological entities, and they are each and every one of them completely different; while the carbon atom reacts the same way under the same conditions, biological entities most certainly do not.

The desire for white teeth and a nice smile is completely vestigial, and goes back to the time when teeth were weapons, and healthy teeth were a sign of virility and ability to fight- thus it is as old if not older than language itself. This should mean that we can find instances of people trying to augment their teeth throughout history and lo and behold: ancient tribes filled and shaped their teeth to what they found attractive, tooth fillings and jewellery worn on teeth is rife in the ancient world, and prosthetics were used since ancient times as well? But what of braces and orthodontics?

We simply cannot stress enough the importance of a white smile. It is not just an aesthetic “thing”, there are deep seated psychological factors ta play. People prefer to be around, work with and enjoy the company of people who have what they consider to be a nice smile.