Bullying and Dental Appearance - getting grief about your teeth

If there's one thing I hate to see or hear about in the course of my work as an orthodontist, it's bullying. Just last month there was an article in the American Journal of Orthodontics about bullying and teeth. Thankfully it's not too often I came across it among my patients in Swords Orthodontics, but it does happen. Although the research happened in another country, it happens in Ireland too, and from Skerries to Santry, or Balbriggan to Boroimhe, and anywhere in between, kids can be given grief by other kids about all manner of things, and that includes the appearance of their teeth.

At one end of the scale I see people that aren't happy with the appearance of their teeth, especially when they smile, and at the other end, I see people that are actually being given a hard time by others about the way their teeth look.

In the research, they looked at about 900 12-year old children and about half of them were bullied in some form, with the appearance of their teeth being the most common reason for bullying. Typical reasons for bullying about teeth included missing teeth, abnormally shaped teeth and prominent upper teeth.

If you want to read a summary of the research he's talking about, here's a link to the article in the American Journal of Orthodontics - you can copy and paste it into your web browser to go to the journal.

http://www.ajodo.org/article/S0889-5406(13)00830-5/abstract

and here's a link to a TV item in the USA about it

http://fox2now.com/2014/01/01/smiles-can-change-lives/