Fashion trends can be strange. I am old enough to remember Hammer pants and one short period when guys came to school wearing pacifiers.
For centuries, people, mostly women, have tortured themselves for fashion.
But one of the latest teen trends in Southeast Asia is one I would have never seen coming-fake braces.
Seriously, teenagers are paying $100 to street vendors or back-alley salesmen for fake braces. According to various news outlets, the latest in status symbols is especially popular in Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty designs.
Many of these teens just want people to think they can afford to buy braces, and some actually like the whole look.
Status symbols, huh? I got your status symbol right here-brace face, metal mouth, train tracks, tinsel teeth, etc. I heard them all while growing up.
Braces mean two things to me: pain and embarrassment.
In about fifth grade, I had to wear retainers and quickly graduated to braces, which did not come off until my junior year in high school. Everyone around me was going through the whole process in only two years, but not me. Hence the embarrassment. It's not that my teeth were that bad. My stint with braces lasted so long because the dentist who gave them to me was not a qualified orthodontist, and all his work had to be corrected.
What I remember most about braces is the pain.
You walk out thinking, "This isn't so bad, just a tad uncomfortable." And the next thing you know, you're afraid to so much as drink anything because you can actually feel your teeth move when you drink. And the school cafeteria just HAD to serve hamburgers the next day!
In a few weeks, your mouth begins to adapt (as it's supposed to), the pain abates, and then it's time to go back for another adjustment. Duhn, duhn, duhn! It's seemingly endless torture.
You also discover you have to give up fun stuff like gum, any kind of hard, sticky candy and chips. They're just too hard to deal with and can break your braces.
I guess that was for the best because I still don't eat hard candy and rarely eat chips. If only it had kept me away from the softer sweets, like cake!
Also, I ended with nice, even teeth, so I guess I must thank the orthodontist, the insurance company and my parents.
Unlike my happy ending, however, there is a dark side to the Asian fashion trend of fake braces-death. At least two teens have died, one because she developed a thyroid infection that led to heart failure. Other nasty side effects are lead poisoning and mouth sores, and wearers also risk swallowing them. Governments are cracking down on bogus-brace merchants by hitting them with high fines.
I think these teens should look elsewhere for a fashion trend-just not the new dangerous one in Japan. Licking a loved one's eyeballs can transfer nasty bacteria from your mouth to places they just weren't meant to be. And, no, I am not making that one up.
Fashion trends in general should just get ignored. Your pocketbook and your health will thank you.