FACES MAY MAKE OR MAR CAREERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 141, 6 March 1942, Page 12

FACES MAY MAKE OR MAR CAREERS

(Written for "The Listener" by DR.

H. B.

TUR

BOTT

Director of the Division of School Hvyéiene.

Health Department )

priceless asset. It doesn’t need to be strikingly beautiful. A face well moulded, expressive, conveying impressions of happiness and vitality, . will facilitate its possessor’s passage through life. Girls dream of formal beauty, boys rarely think about faces unless there’s some marked blemish. Both girls and boys may wish they had been born differently, but neither realise that if they wanted to, they could call their parents to account not for plain but for mis-shapen faces. \ PLEASANT well-shaped face is a It is the lower half of the face that is important for shape and contour. Parents in this country haven't yet grasped the fact that growth of teeth and jaws is interwoven. This growth begins before birth and continues till the thirty-two permanent teeth are safely "cut" and working in rounded jaws. Upon the proper feeding, Spacing, exercising and care of these teeth and jaws in these very early years depends the moulding of the face, its future beauty-and fortune. Parents can spoil their childrer’s faces. by ptoviding too little of the right foods, by allowing wrong habits that alter jaws, and by not helping the little ones to practise dental care, Diet Shapes Faces Food is very important and its influence begins through mother. Tooth development starts at or just after the thirty-fourth day of foetal life. Before birth mother’s diet must contain ample milk and milk products, fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, lean meat, fish, wholemeal bread, whole grain cereals, with extra vitamin D from Cod liver oil. Only from this diet come sufficient calcium and phosphorus and adequate vitamins to form teeth and jaw correctly. So mother really has the first say in the future boy’s or girl’s facial shape and beauty. ' Not only the first or baby teeth are forming before birth; the second or permanent teeth are building too. By birth the calcification of the upper and lower first permanent molars, the ones that cut through at six years, has begun. Others soon follow so that the jaws of an infant and school child are busy tooth-building factories. They not only contain 20 baby teeth; they are manufacturing 32 permanent teeth as well. The Right Foundation The baby teeth are terribly important. This foundation set must be kept healthy till they are replaced by their permanent successors. They are necessary for chewing, for speech, and most important-to give form and symmetry to. the face. They act as guides for the permanent teeth that are forming beneath them, and that will later replace them. When these second teeth are ready to erupt,

the roots of the first teeth have been absorbed and only the crown remains. Only when the cutting time of the second tooth is due should the first tooth be removed. If the first tooth be left too long at this time, up comes the second one in front or behind the baby toothand face shape suffers. Remember that through baby and childhood days the permanent teeth are growing. This growth of permanent teeth in the jawbone provides the necessary | stimulation to rounded and full development of the jaws. Loss of baby teeth before the proper time, or decay of these teeth that stops the roots absorbing, stops jaw growth and makes the second teeth irregular. Exercise of the teeth and on proper foodstuffs makes the jaws grow properly. The tongue, lips and cheek muscles help guide the teeth into proper position. Any bad habit that spoils the normal action of tongue, lips and cheeks, may result in misplaced teeth and mis-shapen jaws. Thumb, finger or dummy sucking, sleeping on the face, or pillowing the face on the arm, lip biting or cheek sucking-these habits cause irregular teeth, jaws that don’t meet properly, and spoil far too many faces. Again, adenoids and diseased tonsils block the airway and interfere with jaw shape and development. Start Early As it is so important to keep teeth for proper jaw growth and facial shape, dental care must begin early. As soon as the full set of baby teeth have erupted at two or two and a-half years, the child should visit the dentist, and every six months hereafter. At least twice a day the little tots should be taught to brush teeth: Mother’s task is no easy one, but if she wants her daughter to be good looking, she has to begin with right foods herself before birth, continue same for the child afterwards, preserve the baby teeth through the early years, steer the child away from bad habits -in short, remember teeth and jaws will make or mar faces. (Next week: "Nutrition and Resistance to Disease," by Dr. Muriel Bell.)