If you’ve ever watched a beauty pageant you have probably noticed that the contestants all have dazzling smiles. Achieving a perfect smile takes a lot of hard work and dedication and often involves cosmetic dentistry. Even celebrity dentists are likely to try new and unheard of dental tricks to ensure that their clients look flawless.
Some beauty pageants place so much emphasis on physical perfection that participants are at risk of developing an eating disorder to reach their goals. Brooke Breedwell, a former child beauty pageant competitor who was featured in the documentary Painted Babies, stated that she suffered from anorexia nervosa due to her mother’s ambition and her own obsessive goal to win.
One of the biggest controversy surrounding beauty pageants is that they teach children that they are only beautiful if they have the right looks. Toddler pageants especially are being heavily criticised for this and a new controversy has been raised over the use of flippers – false front teeth.
A flipper is a removable partial denture that covers missing or crooked teeth and is a popular choice for child beauty pageants as they are at an age where their primary (baby) teeth are falling out and adult ones are erupting. However, many adults also wear them to cover blemishes on their smile like small or yellow teeth and even if they have broken or fractured their tooth.