• Question: How many muscles does it take to frown???

    Asked by mrboffy to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      No idea – but I had heard that it’s more than the number it takes to smile. No idea whether that’s true, though!

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Thinking back to my anatomy lessons at university, I think there are around about 36 named muscles of facial expression.
      It is thought that smiling takes one more muscle than frowning (12 vs. 11) which puts paid to the myth that it takes more muscles to frown rather than smile (which is what my mum used to tell me!!!)

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Lots of people say it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, claiming various numbers of muscles, but after a bit of searching around on the internet it seems to be a bit of an urban myth and no-one really knows. There’s no proper scientific evidence out there and it looks like no-one’s ever really tried to work it out!

      I found this page on snopes.com if you’re interested:
      http://www.snopes.com/science/smile.asp

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