text: Are you thinking of the dietary deficency disease called rickets?\n\nRickets was fairly common in the USA until milk was enriched with calcium and the importance of vitamin D was discovered.  \n\nRickets would cause the bones to soften and "bow".  But by the time the Babyboomers were born, American diets were much better and rickets has pretty much become a thing of the past.\n\nHere's what Wikipedia has to say:\n\n"Rickets is a severe and prolonged vitamin D deficiency that leads to softening and weakening of the bones in children. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium and phosphate, which children need to build strong bones. Good sources of dietary vitamin D are vitamin D-fortified formulas and milk."\n\nMy mother who is of the "Greatest Generation" has rickets when she was a girl and her jaw bones didn't grow properly and she ended up with a mouthful of very crowded and crooked teeth.