I asked a question on this on this blog a while back to do with why they hell there is the stereotype that British people have bad teeth. After reading that post my wife immediately knew the answer. As usual it all falls back to blame it on the war, WW2 that is. Great Britain being an island had very scarce resources during the war for the obvious reasons and fighting for those almost 6 years took a lot of effort.
Basically any material used for fillings were given priority to making bullets and weapons. The ingredients for toothpaste were extremely hard to come by and so people really could not brush their teeth very often. Most of the qualified dentists in the country were of conscription age and so were called up to fight and/or serve the troops. Also the majority of interactions soldiers etc from the USA had with British people were with the fighting men who really didn't rate dental hygiene up there as compared to staying alive and fighting.
So there we go, an obvious answer to a long time passed stereotype that when I first heard it really made go WTF, that's not true.
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