Why does virtually everyone in Great Britain have bad teeth or poor dental health? Noticed 5 yrs ago.?

Question

Ok. Here is the deal. I have been reading BBC news online and watching their cable news and tv shows for about 5 yrs now. I have noticed that at least 8 out of 10 people have horribly unbearable teeth. I know they have a free national health care plan, but I want to know the cultural, historical, practical and moral attitudes and actions towards having a set of healthy, even, clean, white and full teeth.

The NHS provides the majority of healthcare in England, including primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology and dentistry. The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance, but it is used by less than 8% of the population.

Following the government's introduction of a new contract in April 2006, NHS dentistry is not as widely used with 900,000 fewer patients seeing an NHS dentist in 2008 and 300,000 losing their coverage each month.

Answer 1

There is a chronic shortage of dentists in the UK and those that do operate make more money performing private care than NHS work, so poor Joe Average is stuck with his bad teeth.

Answer 2

haha. watch the bbc thing? it's just become a societal thing. like obesity in america. people think, "yes it's awful, but WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?"

Britons drink tea daily, which yellows them. Yellow teeth that are NOT caused by tea look the same, and neither are noticed by everyone.

Answer 3

Another thing that has a huge effect is that they do not flouridate their water in GB while we do in the US.  This helps to greatly strengthen our teeth.