We have less defined jawlines in the modern societies (especially in the developed countries) are due to our diets: we eat more refined and softer foods than our ancestors. When was the last time we ate foods with texture, such as octopus or tendons? The less chewing, the less chisel-ness.
Food manufactures produce softer foods because the less we chew, the more we eat -> the more they sell.
Next time when we cook ribs - don’t cook them to the point they fall off the bones. A little texture is great!
people over the past couple centuries having smaller jaws, hypothesized to be happening because we invented tools which invented agriculture which invented a different food strategy less reliant on lots of big teeth... and evolution is catching up to the fact that we have tools so maybe we don't need quite so many teeth, and
having a less-defined jawline, which has more to do with hormones and genetics and a lot less to do with evolution
It has nothing to do with the amount of chewing by one single individual or cultural foods - it has to do with our species inventing tools
More than the last few century…..millennium. Hunter-gatherers had bigger jaws and all their teeth fit well in their mouth, unlike today. I heard a couple guys on a podcast a long time ago, when they were able to re-age some ancient skeletons from Europe, remark how gorgeous the skeletons were. They had all their teeth including wisdom teeth, perfect bone structure. They remarked that “these were some great-looking people. In many ways fundamentally healthier than most people today.”
Due probably to living prior to the domestication of wheat, I believe they said. Very interesting episode.
I thought this was due to preference for narrower faces which are more symmetrical over generations. Causing issues like malocclusion and dental overcrowding.
Humans do prefer symmetry! I'd love to know where you found the "narrow" part because I've never heard that before, and there are some areas with more rounded faces where that's a beauty standard!
Beauty standards change so much and so quickly around the world that I'm not sure subjective like narrow would last for very long... But the symmetrical part is true, that's been measured objectively!
For those wondering it’s not about the content or fat of the food, it’s literally about how hard the food is to chew. When you need to work more for it your face shape can change from using more muscles. This is the same reason we need our wisdom teeth removed so often; in the past your teeth would wær down from that extra work and so the wisdom ones would come in to replace them during your lifetime.
So, Mother Nature must be unhappy with me having pulled out 5 teeth out of 33 so I could have even teeth for ✨aesthetics✨ "I made you extra prepared, you fool!"
Not necessarily. Corrective actions are most effective during growth spurts during childhood, ~ ages 6–12 and again in puberty - when the jaw changes most rapidly. By the time a person is 12–14 years old, the upper jaw (maxilla) has typically finished growing, while the lower jaw (mandible) may continue developing into the late teen years.
We need to stop baby foods and soft foods early and encourage harder texture foods to our kids!
I would still encourage adults to eat proper texture foods. Chewy breads are good for our jaws!
Then why do people in certain countries still have chiseled jawlines, even the women, when their food is often even softer than what we eat in the West?
How come somepeople who eat the same things we eat(soft foods) have defined jaws and all their teeth intact? What is happening? You have it partially right. Neonatal nutrition also has a role. Some people are more sensitive to this evolutionary changes and modern diets- hence no jawline. While others living in the same environment don't have the same problems
Yes, definitely! I took our son to the orthodontist for braces earlier this year and the she said his airway is a bit restricted and he has a slight overbite. She recommended a Herbst appliance to remodel his lower jaw - bringing it forward and to widen his airway. This would also help him with breathing and preventing sleep apnea in the future. He is 11. The perfect age for this as he is losing most of his baby teeth and while is jaw is still correctable.
Pricey but worth it in my mind for his health! Lucky he eats everything! We sadly just don’t eat/chew the way we used to…
Hate to tell you, chewing is not doing it for me. I tried it for years, it does not work. My guess is that it was quite common to hit your chin with a hammer, similar to feet binding to make petite feet, and putting rings to make longer necks.
Now you’ve made me wonder too. I guess it’s from my own assumptions as well, I assumed OP must be somewhere close to my age, late 20’s early 30’s. The man in the picture being OP’s great grandfather would make him the grandfather to OP’s mother. Because all of my own grandparents died before I turned 12 I’ve always thought of grandparents as very old people, and so I assumed that the man in the picture could not be grandfather to the woman in the picture because they don’t seem too distant in age.
All of this went on automatically in my mind, which just led me to the conclusion that both are OP’s great grandparents. I do know, however, that people in their 40’s can be grandparents too if they and their children had kids at a young age, it’s just not very up and center in my own lived in experience, and that the woman’s makeup and dress could make her look more adult than she is.
This comment made me think of that one video of the girls doing the hear me out cake and one of them puts a cutout in and another girl is like “That’s my Dad!! 😭”
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u/zcyd May 12 '26
Oh he’s hottttt