[The perfect smile].
Cosmetic dentistry is similar to cosmetic surgery in the sense that it changes the human body, thereby challenging the dichotomy between nature and culture. They have implications for knowledge and meaning related to body and health. Change your smile is a booklet that may be picked up by patients in the waiting rooms of Norwegian dentists. On the basis of the booklet's detailed account of the perfect smile, I discuss some aspects of the aesthetics of teeth and the smile, with a focus on the explicit and implicit messages in specific images, on the production of ideals and the evaluation of risk. The booklet not only provides images of the perfect smile and accounts of the success it would bring to your personal and professional life. It also points out the risks that follow from failure to conform to the ideal. In this article, these phenomena are seen in the light of increasing "cosmetic dentalization" and "cosmetic dental healthism".
Bjelland
A K
AK
Institutt for sosialantropologi Universitetet i Bergen Fosswinckels gate 6 5007 Bergen. anne.bjelland@sosantr.uib.no
D000329:Advertising; D001505:Beauty Culture; D004955:Esthetics, Dental; D006801:Humans; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D009664:Norway; D012904:Smiling / Q000523:psychology