The Smile that Attracts a Kiss

When I first went to college, I chanced to meet a sophomore lady during my first year. She was beautiful in all aspects of her creation. I give a testimony here that ladies can indeed be beautiful. Her height was just perfect. The hair was set in the right places. The bone structure was without error. Her posture and mannerisms were awe inspiring. The gait was well measured. To make matters even better, she had the rare figure eight and hence, given to high fashion in college circles. She was in short, something to look at and every man’s dream. This was so, until the lady smiled. We will see the conclusion later.

Your face serves as the front office to your whole self. It creates the very first impression you would like other people to see. We can step out of our houses without taking a bath each morning, but rarely do we forget to wash our faces and more significantly, our mouths. This is because our facial outlook tells a lot about who we are. This article tries to show the effects of food on our teeth and how we can overcome negative results by consuming the right foods, apart from caring for our teeth. Good teeth give us an edge in social circles.

Your smile is an expression of joy or an indication that everything is okay. Better still, we always want to put our best foot forward escorted by a genuine pleasant smile. I’m not referring to that fake and almost elastic commercial smile that we often see on the receptionist’s face or on the air hostess and many others that clearly says “the manager compelled me to smile”. A forced smile tends to be obvious because it is quickly snuffed out or extinguished with a single negative utterance. A genuine smile will exhibit your inner sincere feelings.

Good smiles are welcoming to acquaintances, visitors and all. The smile draws people to you. It also speaks volumes about an institution through the worker. This is why your boss would like smiling workers at the gate, all the way to the high office. Who knows? It might just bring in that elusive coin. It feels better to be served by a smiling waiter or waitress in a hotel.

We can only smile when our teeth look good and attractive. Discoloured teeth work negatively on one’s self esteem. I have met many beautiful girls and handsome men who avoid smiling in public. This can be an issue of concern among the youth with regard to character formation.

I have met many important people and friends who have very bad breathe. Sitting near them can be an agonizing experience. Kissing would be a punishment if such people happened to be your intimate friends or spouses. Something needs to be done about bad breathe. Next time you want to kiss your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife or husband and they gently turn away, ensure to check your breathe and dental hygiene. Always ask yourself whether your smile can attract a kiss from your loved one or not.

Everybody likes chewing something good. This is driven by our need to meet the body’s nutritional needs. Hunger also calls for food. The task of chewing is delegated to the teeth in our mouths which chew approximately 1500 grams of food in a day on the minimum. Our teeth therefore, need to be healthy in order to perform this task efficiently.

There are certain types of food that enhance our teeth’s outlook and performance. They effectively ensure and insure healthy teeth. These foods enable you to smile with confidence without the fear that comes with stained or discoloured teeth.

Dentists recommend that we ought to consume foods that are high in nutrients like protein, calcium and vitamins, but rather low in sugar, if we desire to have healthy teeth.

Such foods include:

Milk; retards or stops acidic activities in starches consumed during breakfast and main meals.

Peanuts; are rich in nutrients but barely have any sugar.

Yoghurt; prevents corrosive activities of acids in food from damaging our teeth.

Cheese; increases the flow of saliva in the mouth, washing away corrosive acids.

Eggs; have a high concentration of protein which is a potent nutrient.

Meat, raw vegetables and fruits; are low in sugar but rich in protein and vitamins.

Water; should be consumed in copious amounts to keep our mouths clean.

There are three occasions when my teeth have succeeded in wiping out my smile. These were days when I couldn’t avoid my dentist who insisted on extracting my cracked, rotten molars. It made me resolve to care for my teeth more often than I used to.

There are foods that we love so much despite their negative contribution towards our teeth. Such foods should be consumed with care and should always be followed with a thorough wash of our teeth to prevent tooth decay, acidity and foul breathe. Tooth decay or discoloration completely wipes out smiles from our faces.

My dentist warned me against consuming the following foods:

Acidic foods; Acidity erodes our enamel making teeth vulnerable to attack by bacteria.

Foods that stain teeth; These include tea, red wine, coffee, berries and curry.

Extremely sweet foods; Foods like candy, cakes, soda, jelly, biscuits increase sugar in the mouth as a perfect breeding condition for bacteria.

Sticky foods; raisins, sultanas, dates and butter from peanuts tend to stick on teeth.

Hot or cold foods; change mouth temperature causing sudden expansion or contraction of teeth.

Plaque is a colorless cavity-causing substance containing food particles and bacteria that build upon teeth. Plaque also causes gum disease.

Tartar is an accumulation of hardened plaque that results in cavities and gum disease.

Gingivitis is a disease arising from plaque deposits which afflict gums. It is characterized by red swollen bleeding gums and mouth sores.

Bad breathe is caused by a deposit of plaque on the teeth’s surface which attracts bacteria leading to tooth decay with a smelly outcome.

Good oral hygiene keeps the dentist away by removing the buildup of harmful plaque and preventing bacteria from getting their habitat. It leaves your mouth healthy and smelling better. There are many things you can do to improve your oral hygiene. My dentist often advises me to use the following:

Toothpaste and tooth brush; Brush your teeth twice each day using fluoride toothpaste.

Flossing helps remove plaque from gaps between our teeth.

A good mouthwash should be used to rinse the mouth twice daily after meals.

Tooth picks help in removing foods that stick in between teeth.

Arrange to see your dentist every six months for cleaning and checkup.

In conclusion to my story at the beginning, the sophomore lady at the beginning of my story would rarely smile. Now, life is so full of humour that we cannot remain without smiling for long. My cute lady would often find herself bursting out in laughter to a funny remark issued by some fellow who was born to make us happy. A look at her teeth when in laughter, revealed teeth that were so discoloured that they reminded me of chocolate. I was initially shocked that such a sweet thing would end up with brown teeth. My surprise turned to sympathy and then empathy later on. I realized she coped better than I thought. You can’t imagine my joy when I saw a young man came by, swept her off her feet and married her in church just before she could complete her studies. She came back after her honeymoon to finish her course and they lived happily ever after. So, keep your teeth clean. You might just attract a kiss