I agree there’s something here, but I think you’re overselling the theory’s level of backup. It really lost me at the ADHD part.
My summary from when I looked at this when trying to figure out orthodontics for my kid: ”Orthodontists evaluated Norwegian skulls from 500 years ago and from now. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17561048/ “Only 36% of the medieval group showed objective assessed needs for orthodontic treatment, compared with 65% of the present-day sample.” Similar study in China, with a 4000-year-old sample because China. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340477/” This made me think that in pre-modern environments, tooth/jaw problems were better but not absent.
Getting kids to do things differently (holding their body differently, eating different foods) seems pretty hard. One more tractable intervention could be informing parents as consumers of orthodontics that there are downsides to making the mouth smaller. E.g. when I talked to different orthodontists, one proposed pulling teeth to reduce teeth crowding, while the others wanted to use an expander to make more room.
I agree there’s something here, but I think you’re overselling the theory’s level of backup. It really lost me at the ADHD part.
My summary from when I looked at this when trying to figure out orthodontics for my kid:
”Orthodontists evaluated Norwegian skulls from 500 years ago and from now. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17561048/ “Only 36% of the medieval group showed objective assessed needs for orthodontic treatment, compared with 65% of the present-day sample.” Similar study in China, with a 4000-year-old sample because China. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340477/”
This made me think that in pre-modern environments, tooth/jaw problems were better but not absent.
Getting kids to do things differently (holding their body differently, eating different foods) seems pretty hard. One more tractable intervention could be informing parents as consumers of orthodontics that there are downsides to making the mouth smaller. E.g. when I talked to different orthodontists, one proposed pulling teeth to reduce teeth crowding, while the others wanted to use an expander to make more room.