Yeah, I’ve seen pictures of british nobility teeth from the 1400 to the 1500’s that illustrate your point.
In the 1400’s the teeth were perfect.
In the 1500’s the teeth were rotted to the root.
The difference? The introduction of sugar. Sugar was popular with the nobility.
What’s happened over 400 years has been that sugar has become available to everyone else. With the same effect—but now its worse because so much sugar is available.
Scientists have recently found that huge amount of sugar in the diet is responsible for most of the big western diseases.
I only let my sons eat candy or much in the way of sweets 4 times a year—birthday, Halloween, Christmas, and Easter. I also taught them to rinse their mouth with water right after eating anything. THey did NOT toothbrush all that much. One less thing for Mom to nag about. No cavities until they left home and not much then. When young, I would fix a snack plate with nuts, apple slices, grape tomatoes, cheese chunks, grapes, carrot and celery sticks, deviled eggs, meat chunks, etc. and leave it in the refrigerator. I fixed breakfast and dinner, but not lunch too often. They had normal weight. It makes me so sad these days to see children look so unhealthy, overweight or skinny.