The video discusses the „mewing“ craze, which claims to be a non-surgical method for reshaping jaws and improving teeth. Mewing involves placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth and exerting slight pressure, along with jaw exercises, to strengthen facial muscles. Orthotropics, the basis for mewing, focuses on natural growth guidance and non-extraction methods to align teeth. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence comparing orthotropics to traditional orthodontics. While early intervention may have some impact, the ability to transform facial structure through mewing diminishes with age. The video warns against relying solely on mewing for significant changes and suggests seeking appropriate professional treatment.
Key Insights:
- The Mewing craze promotes tongue and jaw exercises as a natural way to reshape the face and jaw without surgery.
- Mewing involves placing the tongue flat on the roof of the mouth and exerting slight pressure on the palate.
- Orthotropics, the discipline behind Mewing, focuses on natural growth guidance and non-extraction methods to align teeth.
- Orthodontics, the traditional approach, uses braces and appliances to mechanically align teeth.
- Orthotropics believes facial form can be changed over time through muscle strengthening exercises, posture improvement, and appliance use.
- Orthotropics emphasizes the importance of early prevention for more permanent results.
- There is controversy and skepticism surrounding orthotropics, with some questioning its legitimacy.
- Mewing exercises are relatively harmless if done correctly, but over-chewing can negatively impact the TMJ.
- Nasal obstruction and sleep apnea are caused by various factors beyond just tongue position.
- Mewing and jaw exercises may have limited impact on changing crooked teeth, sleep apnea, or other significant cosmetic changes.
- Mewing and orthotropics in adulthood give a false sense of control over facial anatomy.
Transcript
There’s a mewing craze taking over the Internet. It’s touted as a cure-all way to snatch your face and jaw without any surgery, and the best part is, it’s free. Is mewing a miracle shortcut to reshaping jaws and improving teeth, or is it just another fad designed to claim your eyeballs and steal your digital attention? Let’s find out.
Mewing is named after the Mew family, a father and son Orthodontics family from the UK. Mewing supports chewing more and elevating your tongue towards your palate to support the mid-face. They talk about the inner U, which is the impact of the tongue, and the outer U, which is the effect of the jaw.
The most accepted technique to mew, as seen in many TikTok videos, is to place your tongue flat on the roof of your closed mouth and exert slight pressure on your palate without touching your teeth. Also, when swallowing, you should maintain this tongue position to the best of your ability and train your tongue to push fluids and food back, not using the sucking motion many of us use to swallow foods and fluids.
Now, many people also include jaw exercises meant to build up the masseter muscles, even employing dog chews such as the dog Kong. But to truly understand mewing, we first need to understand what orthotropics is.
Orthotropics‘ main theory is that facial form is under environmental influence over time. As a species, we’ve started to eat softer foods, which has led to less mastication or chewing, resulting in weaker muscles in the face and a less square jaw. Also, a change in our oral posture has led to reduced nasal breathing, and to adjust for this, we then have our tongues down, jaw down, lips apart, and our face becomes more vertical.
Also, due to the effects of reduced breastfeeding, we have developed a weakened swallow. They speculate that all of these things have led to a downswing in facial form and our face becoming more narrow. There is now less space for our tongue, teeth, and airway to coexist, leading to various problems such as crooked teeth, restricted airway, obstructive sleep apnea, and reduced nasal breathing. They call this phenotype craniofacial dystrophy.
The Mew family, with their orthotropics, are looking to create an upswing in facial form using various preventative strategies, including mewing. They do acknowledge that you’re more likely to see these changes in facial anatomy if you start these preventative strategies earlier in life.
Orthotropics differs from the mainstream discipline, which is Orthodontics. Orthodontics is the traditional approach of aligning teeth, with the belief that the growth of the face is relatively unchangeable in adulthood. Orthodontics involves mechanically pushing teeth into alignment through the use of braces, removable appliances, and sometimes surgery. Retainers might be needed on the teeth indefinitely.
Orthotropics, on the other hand, aims to be a preventative method that tries to get to the cause of malocclusion. It involves aligning teeth through natural growth guidance, muscle strengthening exercises, posture improvement, and non-intrusive discreet orthotropic appliances. In orthotropics, they claim more permanent results without a dependence on appliances long-term.
Now, there is no head-to-head longitudinal study comparing these two different methodologies. The establishment is Orthodontics, and they often question the legitimacy of orthotropics. It has been this way for decades, ever since Dr. Mew was pushing the orthotropic methods.
The main message from orthotropics is that one’s facial appearance is not fixed and can be changed over the course of one’s life. They give examples of patients who’ve had strokes in the past, and not only do their muscles get weaker, but also the underlying bone gets weaker as well. When reviewing some of their beliefs, one thought I had was that when we inject Botox into the muscles to try to reduce the muscle size, what often happens is that the underlying bone can thin out as well. Conversely, when we strengthen our muscles through various exercises, usually the underlying bone also gets stronger. So, perhaps they are on to something.
Despite the controversy with orthotropics, I do understand the appeal. We all like the idea of rewarding hard work. If you go to the gym a lot and you’re working out and eating healthy, you want to believe that you’re going to look and feel better. Also, these exercises are practically free, as long as you don’t count the time and effort you’re putting into them. And the trend that you are seeing on TikTok is relatively harmless. Unless you’re consistently pushing on the back of your teeth, you’re unlikely to cause a lot of damage.
Fans of mewing say that it works to reshape the jaw over time, making it more snatched and giving it that modelesque or more masculine look. People love the idea of self-improvement, a DIY way to improve our face and neck.
Here are my thoughts on orthotropics and mewing exercises. Starting early in life, like in our teenage years, might help shape the way our facial skeleton develops. But most facial skeleton growth is over by the age of 16, with some small incremental changes that might occur until around age 25. So, the ability to change our faces with exercises greatly diminishes after the age of about 16.
Over-chewing can hurt the TMJ and potentially lead to early signs of arthritis. Nasal obstruction and obstructive sleep apnea are often caused by factors beyond just an unfavorable tongue position. The obtuse cervical-mental angle that you see on some people is often caused by the positioning of the hyoid bone. Some people have more submental fat, which can create a heavy neck appearance. It’s not just the lack of jaw definition and tongue position that causes that.
There is a danger in relying on mewing or similar exercises to change the appearance of crooked teeth or correct obstructive sleep apnea. We become reliant on that type of exercise to accomplish what we want without truly seeing significant gains over time. People can spend decades on this stuff with minimal to no change, especially when starting in adulthood.
In conclusion, I think early on in life, orthotropics and mewing might have some impact on the way our facial skeleton develops. But as we age, the potential for improvement drastically diminishes.
