Selfies Leading to Dental Dysmorphia

By February 13, 2015Blog

If you’re someone who loves to take selfies, this article is for you.

Doctors have recently coined a new condition called Dental Dysmorphia.  This new, and highly concerning, condition causes people who regularly take selfies to think they have horsey teeth.

It seems that to those with Dental Dysmorphia, people believe their teeth are protruding from their mouths in a highly unflattering manner and appear to look horse-like.

As a result of this unhealthy obsession, people are seeing dental surgeons in mass numbers in an attempt to “look better” when posting selfies to their social media accounts.

While people may believe their mouths are not fit for Facebook, this couldn’t be further from the truth.  In actuality, it is their cell phone camera that is causing the perceived distortion.

Most people take selfies that are taken close up, which is causing their photos to become distorted.  What people think are physical imperfections, however, don’t actually exist.

With the surging popularity of selfies over the past few years, people have an ever-increasing need to appear flawless.  To those with Dental Dysmorphia, teeth play a major factor in appearing attractive to themselves and others.

Because of this, Dental surgeons have seen an increase of 30% over the past 5 years in the number of people requesting to have the size of their front teeth reduced.  This condition is so common, surgeons are actually talking patients out of getting treatment.  To them, there is simply no justification for performing surgery that is completely unnecessary.

Instead, surgeons are giving advice on how to take better selfies.  To take a selfie you’ll be happy with, surgeons suggest using a selfie stick and minimize the use the zoom feature on your phone.