Why British people have bad teeth?

There are certain stereotypes that most of the British people do not have nice looking teeth, they are either forked or broken, or not in shape.

Here are some excerpts:

Is this a common stereotype Americans have of the British? The third person in a row has made that comment to me about British teeth and it just now occured to me that Austin POwers had really funky teeth and was a British character-- so is this a common stereotype? It hadn't occured to me before, I guess because I've never been outside my country and all of the british people I see in pics usually have decent teeth. :nsm:

Come to think of it I do see in pics British teeth that are a bit different than American teeth. The British smiles I have seen are clean natural smiles-- even if the teeth are not perfectly aligned, while the American ones often are perfectly straight and unnaturally white- sometimes it seems like they could even glow in the dark if you shut off the lights. Not all Americans teeth are like that, but there does seem to be a trend here where a naturally white smile is becoming no longer acceptable- the teeth must be unusually and unnaturally white in order to pass inspection. There seems a greater social pressure to have teeth like that, I suppose maybe in order to not be seen as lower class? I dunno.

I personally like mildly crooked teeth. It makes people's smiles unique. Most of the best smiles I can think of that I have been fond of in my lifetime have been crooked ones-- they're just cute, I dunno. :nsm: I mean unless a person has, like, unusually crooked or a big overbite causing them problems and stuff, I understand the need for braces in situations like that. And I certainly can't really say anything if everybody in America decides to have glow in the dark teeth and flawlessly straight smiles- who am I to hammer down on people for teeth that don't belong to me?

I was learning about something called hyperreality last week, where we watch TV and things like that and see unnatural things and begin to believe that that is reality, or normal. Like pictures of models airbrushed, or super duper bright white teeth that don't exist like that naturally, etc. Maybe American society has shifted a bit too far from being dental hygiene- conscious (nothing wrong with that) to reacting to this hyperreality from the media by doing these things that, one could argue, really aren't necessary (not in the same way that regular dental checkups, etc. are).

But why is this stereotype directed at the british and not more of Europe? Have I missed something? WHere did this come from, and are teeth really all that bad in England?

(RubiaWarrenwrites at http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/archive/index.php/t-66399.html)