Could it be more of a genetic thing to have straight teeth or are there outside factors involved too? Not to mention having crooked teeth can cause so many issues but it’s common.
In: 601
Crooked teeth is mostly due to diet. Not evolution. If we compare to pre-human species, then evolution was a major role. As we became more bipedal, the center of weight of our skull had to be more aligned over our spine. This did cause the jaws to shrink compared to other great apes. It was also driving a gradual disappearance of wisdom teeth in the population.
However, if you compare the alignment of teeth in skulls from… 300+ years ago, you’ll notice almost all of the skulls have nearly perfectly aligned teeth. Compare that to now where a majority of the population have misaligned teeth or have had orthodontic treatment.
The big change is diet. For example, many historic societies would grind grains with some sort of stone tools. This introduced a lot of small stone gravel into the diet. It also did not produce as soft of grains as we have now. So instead of eating fairly soft white bread, they had a diet with more bran, stones and sand; which requires a lot more chewing. Likewise, our protein selection for young children is really quite soft. Things like hot dogs, ground meats, or well cooked meats. None of this is particularly hard to chew. Compare this to eating tendons or sometimes skins.
You can see a similar trend between modern populations. If you compare someone who grew up in an area with less processed foods, or they culturally have foods that require a lot of chewing, you’ll notice far less crowding in the teeth.
Basically, chewing more stimulates jaw growth. So a more coarse diet will result in larger jaws, which can better fit all the teeth. Keep in mind that the jaw is mostly done growing around age 12. So it really depends what you eat as a kid.
Latest Answers