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SMILE LIKE A CHILD by Dr. John F. Miller DDS
There is one question I almost always get asked when someone finds out I’m a dentist. “So like, have you been totally checking out my teeth this whole time?” The answer to that question is...100% yes. I’m sorry, I’m a teeth guy. A smile guy. It gives a whole new meaning to “my eyes are up here.” What precisely am I looking at during that quick glance? There are so many biometric cues that my brain absorbs in fractions of a second. To the lay person there are 3 types of smiles. The first of these is the “Great Smile.” These are the smiles that are putting points in the win column. We think about these smiles long after we see them. These are the real smiles that are infectious. We crave these smiles.
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The second type of smile is...you guessed it, the “Not So Great Smile.” These have the opposite 116 406
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effect of Great Smiles. They work against their owners and are memorable for the wrong reasons. Lastly, we have the 3rd type of smile. This smile is neither “Great” nor “Not So Great.” This smile does not get noticed. This is the “Meh Smile.” This sounds a little shallow I know, so maybe I can dig my way back into your good graces here. I am not a lay person. I have chosen over the last nine years to study every nook and cranny of the human mouth and have looked at thousands. I mentioned biometric cues earlier. Biometry refers to the measurement and analysis of people's unique physical characteristics. These cues include the gingiva (gums), the lips, the shape, shade, and contour of the teeth, the cleanliness, the smell, or lack thereof, and the eyes. That’s right, I mentioned a Great Smile is one that’s genuine and the eyes inform us of a smiles sincerity. These cues are like the paints on the artist’s palette that when mixed together form an altogether unique and individual picture. This picture we would all agree is greater than the sum of its parts, the individual colors themselves.
Now I’m going to give you my definition of a Great Smile. The smile that will catch my attention, in the right way, is the one that’s healthy and genuine. This is the smile of a child that is loved. The healthy part is easy, brush and floss daily, see your hygienist regularly, and make smart decisions when it comes to your diet. Making it real can be the challenge sometimes. Knowing what I know now, I fully appreciate how extremely fortunate I was to have a Mom that was concerned and involved with my oral health as well as the oral health of my siblings. Brushing our teeth morning and night was a big deal around the Miller house. And without fail every six months we would load up the Chevy Comfort Craft Van and head into town for our routine teeth cleanings and exams. These trips were exciting for a variety of reasons. One, we got to miss school. And not just a little bit of school, we had to travel to see the dentist and there were five of us, so it was an all-day affair. Reason number two, we got to go to Pizza Hut and each choose a song out of the Juke-Box.