I Call This Stuff 'The Great Equalizer' Between Rich and Poor

Because of the fact that wealth tends to lead to much higher levels of orthodontics (braces, aligners, etc)

I figured i’d get a little philosophical today.

When you live seeing these patterns around you for an extended period of time you start thinking about the secondary and tertiary effects.

How does this impact society? How did these patterns change our belief system?

Because I have a feeling that they had massive impacts. And because of this a lot of those beliefs will change in a couple generations.

Today i’m gonna try to explain what I mean by this.

Wealthier people are more likely to put braces & aligners on their kids

In affluent communities, orthodontic work has become almost a rite of passage.

Parents with disposable income readily invest in treatments like Invisalign and braces, believing they're giving their children an advantage in life.

The social pressure to have perfectly straight teeth is particularly strong in wealthy areas, and parents have the means to fulfill this perceived need.

And this stuff is not cheap. Particularly in poorer countries.

In part because the corporates behind things like Invisalign and Damon Braces try to standardize pricing as much as they can.

So the price puts it out of reach for some. And to them this probably seems like a big disadvantage.

But then these wealthier people suffer the consequences

Ironically, this "advantage" eventually almost always backfires.

These children and adults that end up doing the orthodontics become much more likely to develop more physical health issues, including neurological conditions, as they age.

Mental health problems become more prevalent due to the ‘deflating of the skull’ that i talk about and the resulting impact on the brain.

Despite what started as good intentions, they often end up looking worse and aging faster than their peers who never had orthodontic work.

Let me break this down with an example to lock it in

This was a CNN story that i’d posted about in early 2019 to my group.

A news story comes on about two women who were identical twins that were separated soon after birth and then reunited after ~50 years.

And as they discuss the two women’s lives they talk about how now they look quite different from one another. As you can see in the pic above.

And how they grew up quite different. One woman was in a much better off family whereas the other one was in a poorer one.

And I was like “hmmm I bet the one in the wealthier family did braces and is the woman on the right.”

So I Googled and found an article about the women. And sure enough they had this pic of them as kids.

And boom!! I read the article and sure enough they showed this photo of the two girls as kids. The girl on the left with the braces on was the one from the wealthier family!

And had indeed become the older woman on the right with the ‘less anatomically correct’ skull.

Poorer countries end up healthier than richer ones

This phenomenon helps explain the long-observed paradox of happiness in less wealthy countries.

For years, we've noticed that people in poorer South American or African countries often seem healthier and happier than Americans, despite having far less access to material goods, healthcare, etc.

I saw this with my own eyes when I circumvented the world as part of the Semester at Sea program in 1998 when I was a junior in college.

We tend to attribute this to a ‘simpler’ way of life and less stress. Or perhaps more physical activity.

But the reality is likely much simpler - they've inadvertently preserved their structural health by not having access to expensive orthodontic interventions.

Also countries that are less vain about their teeth end up better off

My visit to Japan a couple months back reminded me of this one.

Despite being a wealthy nation, orthodontics hasn't gained the same foothold there as in other developed countries. Crooked teeth are more socially acceptable, and there's less pressure to "fix" them.

In fact there’s a trend in which girls actually enhance their crooked teeth more. Only in Japan! Hahaha

Contrast this with Thailand, a less wealthy country where social pressure for straight teeth has led to what seems to me like much higher rates of orthodontic work.

I go to a simple cafe out here where the waitress probably doesn’t earn more than perhaps $500 a month and am often blown away by the fact that she has braces on.

They spend several months of salary just to have straight teeth. Whereas a woman in Japan probably earns far more but still doesn’t do it.

This is one of the few things that advantaged the poor

In a world where wealth typically confers lots of advantages, this has been a rare equalizer.

While the wealthy have better access to most things in life, they haven't necessarily been happier or healthier.

The inability to afford expensive orthodontic work has inadvertently protected many poorer people from its negative consequences.

And i think this stuff I talk about here was a big factor in that. In a way... I'm a bit sorry that this is going to change as this knowledge becomes more widespread.

Because then poor people will be disadvantaged in almost everything.

Closing thoughts

Wealth has given people a lot of advantages.

But it also gave them orthodontics.

Which i’m pretty sure the world is going to conclude in the future is pretty evil.

And so in a way… these biomechanics i talk about are the “Great Equalizer” for the less materially advantaged.

Or one metaphor i like to make is… “we are like mice that went for the fancy looking cheese but then paid the price for it.”