A common body practice that has become increasingly popular in the past decade or so have been bleaching ones teeth so they become that sparkly white color like you see in Hollywood. Television ads and other media outlets have made it wonderfully apparent that if your teeth are a few shades yellower than blinding white is unattractive and could cost you job interviews or potential mates. No longer is the body practice of basic oral hygiene brushing/flossing/rinsing enough, we now need to put plastic strips or trays with some paste with an awful taste on our teeth. We need to train our docile bodies to avoid foods, drinks, and activities that would stain our teeth. When you leave the dentists office your teeth are cleaned oral health improved. I have never had a dentist suggest that I should whiten my teeth for health reasons.
It is interesting to note that trips to the dentists are generally a dreaded activity, yet I have seen laser teeth whitening clinics in malls. This suggest that whitening your smile just another chore that can be taken care of during a weekend shopping trip, but also that it is much more pleasant experience that you can do while shopping to enhance your appearance to go along with your new clothes. Being a chemistry major I looked into how the laser whitening procedures work and the lasers are used to enhance the whitening agents to decrease the amount of time to bleach your teeth. The fact that something is placed on your gums to protect your gum tissue seems to allude to the activity being somewhat dangerous.
I guess this particular body practice has a net positive effect of increasing oral hygiene. However, we do it to appear more attractive and seem cleaner. It is possible to have a perfectly healthy mouth with partially stained teeth, but it is not socially desirable. So, we have to make a choice: Do the best we can at keeping our teeth white through regular cleaning practivce, or add a little something extra (potentially a very costly something extra) to give us that stark white smile.
So this post hit me pretty hard. I will admit it, I am an obsessive teeth whitener... My body has most certainly become a docile body when it comes to this particular body practice. After I have whitened my teeth I feel cleaner and healthier, neither of these things are actually caused by the white strip itself. It's just another example of how our culture has trained me into thinking white teeth are desirable.
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