My goofy gnashers made me paranoid

I’M a great believer in people getting their crooked teeth fixed. How you look when you smile can affect your confidence and how others perceive you.

But the British Orthodontic Society warned this week that people are putting their dental health at risk by buying DIY kits to correct crooked teeth.

The idea that anyone would risk damaging their teeth this way horrifies me.

When I was in my late teens, the teeth on one side started collapsing inwards and pushed my front teeth so they started to stick out. My upper lip sat over one protruding tooth like a permanent snarl. I became paranoid about my goofy teeth, rarely smiled and covered my mouth whenever I did.

My dentist told me the problem was so extensive that the best option was to replace the teeth with dentures.

I was devastated. Thankfully, a relative paid for me to have work done. It took five years, but it changed my life — and my personality from a self-conscious introvert into a confident and cheerful chap (I like to think!). ÷I’VE seen some daft things on the internet, but few as bonkers as the latest ludicrous fad: ‘dry fasting’. This involves abstaining from liquids of any sort for around ten hours a day in order to ‘give the kidneys a break’.

This displays such woeful ignorance of how the body works that it’s difficult to know where to start. It’s like saying ‘Give your lungs a break by stopping breathing for a bit’!

The fact that this absurd craze has gained any sort of traction suggests we are failing to teach the young basic biology.