Children fed a diet packed with ultra-processed foods (UPFs) could be left with buck teeth, concerning research has suggested.
Additive-laden foods like crisps and sweets have been vilified for decades over their supposed risks, with dozens of studies linking them to type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Experts have even called for UPFs — typically anything edible that has more artificial ingredients than natural ones — to be slashed from diets.
Now, Spanish scientists who tracked dozens of young kids discovered that consuming a diet primarily made up of ultraprocessed foods, which are typically soft and hyper-palatable, impacted jaw development.
Dr Laura Marques Martinez, an expert in pediatric dentistry at the Catholic University of Valencia and study co-author, said: ‘Chewing plays a crucial role in the proper development of the jaws as it stimulates bone growth, strengthens facial muscles, and promotes proper dental alignment.
‘Chewing solid and fibrous foods, such as fruits, vegetables, or natural proteins, exercises the jaws, helping to prevent issues like malocclusion (misalignment of teeth) and deficiencies in the size and shape of dental arches.
‘On the other hand, diets based on ultra-processed foods, which are soft and require minimal effort to chew, negatively impact jaw development.
‘These foods, by failing to adequately stimulate the maxillofacial muscles and bones, can lead to underdeveloped bone structures and increase the risk of malocclusion and respiratory problems.’
US scientists who tracked over 600 overweight Americans, discovered those who ate more junk food had higher amounts of fat stored inside their thigh muscles
The Nova system, developed by scientists in Brazil more than a decade ago, splits food into four groups based on the amount of processing it has gone through. Unprocessed foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, eggs and meat. Processed culinary ingredients — which are usually not eaten alone — include oils, butter, sugar and salt
Research has shown that British toddlers consume half their calories from a UPF diet. The figure stands at 59 per cent among seven-year-olds.
In the study, the researchers tracked the eating habits, dental structures and skull shape of 25 three to five-year-olds.
They found those who ate softer foods were more likely to have buck teeth and to lack natural gaps, which are required between teeth in early childhood to allow larger teeth later on.
One of the UK’s top diet experts, Professor Tim Spector, also told The Telegraph: ‘We’ve been going through this epidemic of jaw shrinkage for a few hundred years but it has really accelerated over the last two decades.
‘As a result, we’re seeing a huge rise in orthodontic problems in children – a massive use of braces, and far more crooked teeth.
The founder of the popular nutrition ZOE app added: ‘The strongest current theory about why the jaws have been shrinking so rapidly is that we’re feeding on our kids baby food really for the whole of their lives.
‘So that they just don’t develop the jaw muscles or the size of the jaw, and you aren’t really adapted for chewing.’
One of the UK’s top diet experts, Professor Tim Spector, also told The Telegraph : ‘We’ve been going through this epidemic of jaw shrinkage for a few hundred years but it has really accelerated over the last two decades’
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The umbrella term UPFs is used to cover anything edible made with colourings, sweeteners and preservatives that extend shelf life.
Ready meals, ice cream and tomato ketchup are some of the best-loved examples of products that fall under the umbrella UPF term.
This is now synonymous with foods offering little nutritional value.
They are different to processed foods, which are tinkered to make them last longer or enhance their taste, such as cured meat, cheese and fresh bread.
The UK is the worst in Europe for eating UPFs, which make up an estimated 57 per cent of the national diet.
They are thought to be a key driver of obesity, which costs the NHS around £6.5billion a year treating weight-related disease like diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.
Last year, disturbing data also suggested that children who ate lots of UPFs show early signs of poor heart health and diabetes risk factors from as young as three years old.
It comes as figures released in September from the House of Commons Library showed almost half (44.6 per cent) of children in the UK haven’t seen an NHS dentist for over a year.
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This equates to roughly 5.35million children — an increase of almost half a million on pre-pandemic data.
The NHS recommends under-18s have a dental check-up at least once a year because their teeth can decay faster. NHS dental care for children is free.
But NHS dentistry has been in crisis for years, with leaders claiming the sector has been chronically underfunded, making it financially unviable to carry out treatments.
Exacerbating the problem is that, as more dentists leave the NHS, those that remain become swamped by more and more patients.
Brits have also told how they have been sat on waiting lists for months and travel abroad to see a dentist after finding it impossible to get an NHS appointment, slamming the system as ‘Victorian’.
Others have been forced to pull out their own teeth with pliers or travel abroad for treatment.
