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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

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As a European people here often make comments about American teeth being ridiculously white and unnaturally straight. You guys went a bit far on that one.

Unnaturally straight? What is natural to you? My teeth are perfectly straight and so is my entire family’s and none of us has ever had braces. Is that not natural?

Corrected vision is unnatural. Did we go a bit far on that too?

Europeans’ teeth would be white too if they smoked less.

> Europeans’ teeth would be white too if they smoked less.

err, maybe if they also didn't drink so much coffee and/or tea

Let's not ignore the fact that Americans have largely embraced teeth whitening as a norm.

Touché! Maybe its just the blinding whiteness then.

Apparently anything man-made to modify natural outcomes is unnatural.

There are extremes, like elective cosmetic surgery, fake tans, cranial implants, etc., but some things just make living as an ordinary person easier. Glasses, hearing aids, normal medicines, etc.

When people destroy their natural healthy teeth to put on veneers, it's very far on that.

When people destroy their teeth enamel, it's very far on that too.

Destroying your natural teeth for an extra shade of blinding white or marginally straighter teeth is insane, and quite common.

We can all agree that somewhere in between is certainly the preferred option. Walking around with all veneers or crowns is a problem, but so is walking around with constant cavities and yellow teeth, so likely somewhere in between what the US does and the EU does.

Healthy teeth have nothing to do with veneers and crowns. The opposite of a decorated mouth is not a sick mouth, just like the opposite of a bright pink house isn't a burned down house.

Sure, that’s obviously true, but misses my point; on average, European teeth are less healthy than American teeth. At the same time, American teeth tend to have too much work done on them on average.

Both of these things can be true simultaneously.

Worse, a veneer decorated mouth is a maimed mouth, whose healthy tissues were destroyed.

Veneers don't last forever, they will require lifetime commitment.

Losing your teeth is also a lifetime commitment.

There is a paper linked on Wikipedia stating that studies conducted in Germany showed that "Water fluoridation was followed by a decrease of caries, and interruptions in fluoridation were followed by increasing caries levels." but also "There was a significant caries decrease down to the lowest DMFT (2.0) since 1959 in spite of the fact that only F-poor water was available over years [...] explained by changes in caries-preventive and environmental conditions."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-0528....

They don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on their children's teeth to make sure that their kids can find professional jobs without being written off the first time they smile during the job interview. It's a symptom of our sick culture in the US.

Their precious bodily fluids[1] retain their purity, at least.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4XhhTF7vRM

this is interesting, can you refer any statistics?

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