DESIGNER BRACES HAVE KIDS SMILING

(New Jersey) Record

(c) 1996 Record (The). All rts. reserv.

05546201 DESIGNER BRACES HAVE KIDS SMILING Record  (Northern 
New Jersey) (RE) - THURSDAY February 15, 1990 By: Knight-Ridder News 
Service Edition: All Editions  Section: LIFESTYLE  Page: d13 Word Count: 
248

TEXT: When Kirk Oetken smiles, kids don't call him brace face, railroad 
teeth, or metal mouth.

     "They call me cool," said the seventh-grader from Coral Springs, Fla.

    Once the scourge of adolescence, braces are suddenly hip.

     Parents   may   have  sentenced  their  kids  to  wearing  the  clunky 
contraptions,  but kids are fighting back with colors. Lots of colors _ hot 
pink,  brilliant  blue,  slime  green,  monster purple, and pink moon dust. 
They're no more _ and no less _ expensive than regular braces.

     "It  gives  kids  some  control,"  said  Barbara  G.  Melamed, a child 
psychologist  and  expert  on behavioral aspects of dentistry at the Albert 
Einstein  College  of  Medicine  in  New  York. "When kids have a choice of 
colors, it gives them self-esteem."

     In teenspeak, it makes them cool.

     Kids across the country are turning their mouths into kaleidoscopes of 
colors,  the  kinds  seen  on  sneakers  and  skateboards. They match 
their Day-Glo  braces  and rubber bands with party clothes, ski suits, and 
school colors.

     "These  are  colorful and cool," said Anthony D'Amico, 14, hopping off 
the  chair  at  Dr.  Edward  Sheinis'  Coral  Springs office, his top teeth 
glowing  with  turquoise  braces,  his  bottom teeth adorned with dark blue 
elastic bands.

     The  designer  brace  craze  started  in  Denver, where a small dental 
supply  company  began  to  experiment  with colors. They shipped out a 
few samples in 1988.

     "It  was  a  fluke,"  said  Martin Brusse, president of Rocky Mountain 
Orthodontics, founded by his father in 1933. "But it worked." 
DESCRIPTORS:  HEALTH; CHILD; EQUIPMENT