Category Archives: Dental Aesthetic Across Cultures Research Paper

What comes to your mind when you think about Vikings? I think about fearless warriors who weren’t really to worried about their physical appearance or hygiene. Well recent studies has had people wondering where they truly self-conscious as most of modern day people. The debate has begun on why the Vikings had certain marks on their teeth. Whether to look more fearless or to look better it has to do with making others see them in a different way. This was interesting to me because I love learning about people’s personalities. This brought out the kind of personalities they had to think the way they did about their appearance.

In the world that we live in today, beautiful teeth is associated with pearly whites. The desired coloration of ones tooth is white, the whiter the teeth the more “beautiful” the smile. Amazingly enough there was a time and place where “black” teeth, yes black teeth, was desired and pearly whites  were frowned upon. This unique tradition was traced back to the Meiji Era in Japan. There are hundreds and thousands of different cultures around the world and every one of them have something unique to bring to the table, Japan and its uunusual dental aesthetics is among them.

The concept of tooth jewelry isn’t new and has been around for centuries.   In my paper, I talk about the Mayans influence of practice today and  the two ways people are currently achieveing the jeweled tooth look; Cementing temporary gems on the tooth (a 15 minute process at the dental office) and Grills which is popular in places like the South. Grills are caps which is either permanently or temporarily  cemented to  the entire anterior teeth.  Caps can be plain (gold, silver or platinum) or decorated in jewelry of the wearers choice.  Grills are mainly assoicated  with hip hop artists. I also compare the history, the process and health concerns according to the ADA of having jewelry in the mouth.    At the end my research, I notice that having a gem temporarily cemented to the tooth is not only least costly than having grills, but is becoming very popular in places like Santa Barbara.

The whole point of the Ohaguro, which is the practice of painting the teeth into black color was that every cultural have different perspective or an idea about being beautiful. This case, Japanese people thought that coloring the teeth into black was beautiful. There are many other reasons to this practice went on and on, such as to show that you’re married, or to cover the yellow teeth caused by pale make-up. Also there are many different period of time that Ohaguro was practiced. Ohaguro went on period after period, and it is still active in few areas in Asian countires.

Dental implants have been around for a long time. It is a way to bring back a beautiful smile that has been damaged or destroyed.  Dental Implants have been around since the Mayan civilization, They began making implants out of sea shells and thru out history we have managed to improve on their procedure to make a more natural smile.  We now make Implants out of Titanium with porcelain crowns and make them in the forms in which they look and act like natural teeth.  I found this fascinating based on how evolved the Mayan civilization was for their time in history.

How far can society go towards there extreme perception of beauty within their

culture. In most popular cultures teeth whiting/bleaching has become one of the

new trends towards preserving youth and staying attractive. In other parts of

the world it is possible to witness the total opposite. What may be thought of as

teeth mutalation to some observers, to those within the culture teeth sharpening

is attractive. Teeth Sharpening is practiced and performed in Indonesia, mostly

on the Women of the Mentawai Tribe. Their perception on beautiful teeth goes

as far as sharpening them with nothing more than a sharp rock and a piece of

wood, so that when all maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth are sharpened

they resemble the rows of teeth in a sharks mouth. Teeth play a major role in

communication and how they are precieved as by being beautiful depends on the

the society and the culture that raised them.

Hello Everyone,

My name is Astrid Araujo and my paper assisgment  was about Cultural Competency. My paper  presents a review of cultural competency education in the health professions such as in dentistry and medicine, overall with specific methods of evaluating studenst and residents knowledge of cultural competency concepts and practices and clinical performance. Some important facts about this issues are as follows: 1) little agreement on competency knowledge; 2) the amount of race we have; and 3) stereotyping the behavior of racial  groups. A report was found that racial and ethic differences in health care and that a lack of access to care does not fully explain why such disparities exits. 

After doing my research, I found that the British people see anything related to dental aesthetics from a different view than the Americans. From an American perspective, Teeth are everything. In other words they are very much so treated like jewels. The people of Great Britain put less emphasis on the appearance of their teeth. British teeth are not bad, but irregular by American standards. Different countries put different emphasis on body parts. What’s considered normal in one country may be seen as abnormal in the next. After researching you are able to understand and empathize with the cultural difference. Americans classify anything that isn’t perfect in the mouth as normal. Whereas, the people of Great Britain would rather focus on every other aspect of health, than to cosmetically change something that they were born with and consider to be a natural feature of the human body.

Present day’s esthetic dentistry continues to develop and improve from the ancient Romans. From teeth whiten to the discovery of toothpaste and prosthetic teeth; they were all influenced by the ancient Romans. There are similarities in esthetic dentistry between the ancient Romans and the present day standards. Functions and the esthetics of teeth both are important during ancient Rome and present day. For example, the ancient Romans had high desires for white teeth as they reflected the person’s social status. In addition, the ancient Romans used bones, ivories and gold to replace their missing teeth. After centuries as we improved in science and technology, prosthetic teeth became more natural and suitable for our desires.

Here is my attachment: roman esthetic.

Americans and Europeans grow up in two different environments and parts of the world. They can share various things in life, but when it comes to dentistry do Americans and Europeans use it in the same way? In Glasgow, a more poorer city compared to New York City, use their dentistry for health needs; but what people don’t know is the percentage compared between Americans in New York City and Europeans in Glasgow, on the way people prefer whiter teeth over natural. In the end though, Americans in New York City do use dentistry more as a ‘cosmetic’ improvement, rather then for health compared to Glasgow who uses just about 10% less of dental needs for ‘cosmetics’ rather than healthcare.