2 ms·

I read an article not long ago that claimed the reason post-industrialized human teeth are all sort of messed up and don't fit in their small jaws is people don

I read an article not long ago that claimed the reason post-industrialized human teeth are all sort of messed up and don't fit in their small jaws is people don't chew on things early in life anymore. The claim was that while genetics determine the ultimate form a jaw will take, its complete growth requires stimulation from resistance and usage during the formative years. So if you have kids, I guess feed them ribs to gnaw on instead of spoon-delivered goop and give them chew toys instead of pacifiers?

gerdesj 6y ago
When I was teething I used to chew on Bonios - dog biccies and I carried on eating them until about six or seven. My nickname was Gnasher for a while. I had my four pre-molars removed aged 10 or 11 but my teeth were still too large for my gob. I wore a brace "spider" to try and move my upper incisors into something like the right place. I've had two of my wisdom teeth removed. One was impacted and the removal was a quite unpleasant ordeal over 45 minutes. At one point the (female) nurse put me in a hold that I (male) can only describe as a bit of a highlight but it was needed because breaking my tooth took a lot of grunt. The other was whipped out 20 years later before I even knew the dentist had got a grip on it. The pain relief from that extraction is nearly indescribable. I don't think that dentistry is quite as simple as we think. My problems seem to stem from when I was a toddler and cracked a baby incisor on a step. The tooth eventually "died" and went a bit weird. When it finally came out it had a huge root with a small hook on the end compared to the one next door to it. My teeth also seem to be too big for my jaw size. Incidentally my mum never used a dummy (pacifier) on her children. Ever.