Have you ever noticed that your double chin becomes more visible when you smile? While genetics, weight and muscle tone in the neck play an important role in the appearance (or lack of) a double chin, facial expressions can also influence its appearance or invisibility.
Does Smiling Give You a Double Chin or Are You Imagining Things?
Take a real good look in the mirror, focusing in on the area underneath the chin. Make a variety of expressions, comparing them to a smiling face. In most cases, a double chin becomes more apparent with a smile than any other expression.
This cause and effect relationship may make you think that smiling gives you a double chin, and is making your appearance worse – but in fact the opposite is true. Smiling exercises the platysma, which is the major muscle in the front of the neck. Loss of muscle tone and fatty deposits in this area make a double chin increasingly visible. By routinely working this muscle by smiling, you are actually burning fat, reducing the appearance of fatty deposits and improving muscle tone.
How Smiling, Posture and Double Chins are Connected
If you have noticed your double chin is more evident when you smile, chances are the cause isn’t the lack of muscle tone or extra fat. Go back and take a look at some photographs, paying particular attention on how you are holding you head. Are you tucking you chin in, pointing your head downward or do you have poor posture? Any one or combination of these factors can exaggerate the appearance of a double chin or cause one to appear when it really isn’t there.
Correcting the Appearance of a Double Chin When Smiling
Adding facial exercises to your daily routine can reduce this unsightly and unflattering bulge, but may have a limited impact on your smile. Instead, the best way to correct the problem is changing the cause – which is related to posture and head position.
Look in a mirror and smile, paying close attention to any changes in your posture, head and neck position. Make subtle adjustments by raising your chin slightly, pushing out your jaw and stand with perfect posture (or as perfect as you can manage.) In most cases, these subtle adjustments can drastically reduce the appearance of your double chin.
Even though your smile may make a double chin appear out of thin air, it is not the cause of its appearance. And individuals who are trying to reduce this problem area can rest assured this expression is working important facial muscles. In most cases, smiling is related to poor posture and how the head and neck are carried – and are not the cause of your double chin.
