Do teenage magazines give a genuine view of tooth colour?

The media has a marked influence on teenage behaviours. Magazines aimed at the teenage market contain images that are idealised and some readers may develop feelings of inadequacy in relation to their appearance. Objectives: To compare the colour incisors depicted in teenage magazines with a sample of Welsh teenagers. Methods: A representative one month sample of magazines aimed at the 9- to 16-year-old girls was obtained from a retail outlet. All images containing photographs of anterior teeth were identified and the colour of the incisor teeth measured using two commercial shade guides. An additional category of “whiter than shade guide” was introduced. Images were viewed under standardised conditions by the same examiner, 10% were repeated. Clinical measurements, under standard conditions, were taken by the same examiner of 9 to 16-year-old children presenting to the department over a one month period using the same shade guides, 47% of readings were repeated. Data were entered into SPSS and comparison of proportions used to compare the two groups. Results: 19 magazines containing 268 images and 53 patients were used. Inter examiner agreement was 92% for patients and 93% for images. 0/53 (0%) clinical compared with 202/268 (75.4%) photographs were found to be whiter than the shade guide. Conclusions: Teenage magazines do not give an accurate representation of the colour of teenager's teeth. The impact of this on children's self esteem is unknown.