When we eat, the correct way is to use both sides of the teeth alternately to chew food; however, some children are used to chewing with only one side of the teeth, which is medically called lateral chewing. Lateral chewing is very harmful to children’s teeth, mainly in: 1. If you often eat with only one side of the teeth, it will make this side of the facial muscles and jaws overdeveloped, forming functional hypertrophy; while the jaws and muscles on the side not used will not be exercised for a long time and atrophy, so there will be two sides of the face is not the same size, that is, facial asymmetry deformity. This effect is especially obvious for children, if the face has developed into crooked, it is very difficult to correct, often need to use orthodontic joint orthognathic surgery to correct. 2. The occurrence of tooth decay (tooth decay), gingivitis and periodontal disease is not unrelated to lateral chewing. When eating, the constant friction of food on the tooth surface and the continuous rinsing of saliva on the tooth surface are called the self-cleaning effect of teeth in medical science. As the teeth without side chewing function, the self-cleaning function is lost, and tartar and calculus are easily accumulated between teeth, which can easily cause caries and gum redness, pain, bleeding and other symptoms. 3, due to the overuse of unilateral teeth, it is easy to cause the wear of the chewing side of the teeth occlusal surface, which can cause dentin allergy, teeth will be painful in case of hot and cold stimulation, and may even cause pulpitis and severe pain. At the same time, for the overload “work” chewing teeth, but also shorten the life of these teeth. There are two main causes of lateral chewing in children: one is that after the loss of milk teeth, one side has no teeth to bite, so they can only use the other side of the teeth to eat; the other is that one side of the tooth decayed and not treated in time, so it is painful when eating, so they have to use the other side of the healthy teeth to eat. To correct lateral eating, we must first supervise the child to develop the normal habit of chewing on both sides. Dental disease should be treated in time, and missing teeth should be set as early as possible to ensure the function and efficiency of chewing and eating.